fprint doesn't work in loop - c

Question

I am trying to repeatedly read a string from the command line and print it to a file. This is my code:
int main ()
{
FILE* fp=fopen("test.txt","w");
char* tofile[10];
while(1){
printf("cat: ");
scanf("%s",tofile);
fprintf(fp,"%s\n",tofile);
}
return 0;
}
It works just fine outside the loop. But inside, it just doesn't print.
The fprintf function returns the correct amount of characters it has to print.
Note: I know there's a similar question out there, but it hasn't been answered yet, and I hope my code can help in this matter since it's simpler.

Answer 1

Well first it doesn't seem that what you want is reading on the command line.
The command line what you write right when you execute your program such as:
./main things that are on the command line
What it seems you want to do is to read on the standard input.
What you should consider is to use the fgets function, as it has a limit of characters to be read, so that you can store them "safely" into a buffer, like your tofile.
As you want to read on the standard input you can use the stdin stream (which is a FILE* that is automatically created for every program)
The line goes
fgets(tofile, 10, stdin);
Your loop becoming :
while (fgets(tofile, 10, stdin) != NULL) {
printf("cat: ");
fprintf(fp, "%s\n", tofile);
}
meaning: as long as we can read on the standard input, print "cat :" and store what we just read in the file controlled by the stream pointer fp.
Some important stuff
When you try to open a stream it may fail and you should test it:
char filename[] = "test.txt";
FILE *fp = fopen(filename, "w");
if (fp == NULL) {
fprintf(stderr, "Failed to open the file of name : %s", filename);
return EXIT_FAILURE;
}
Right before exiting your main, you should also close the file and check if it has succeeded, like that for example:
if (fclose(fp) != 0) {
fprintf(stderr, "Failed to close the file of name : %s", filename);
return EXIT_FAILURE;
}
The whole thing becomes:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main (void) {
char filename[] = "test.txt";
FILE *fp = fopen(filename, "w");
if (fp == NULL) {
fprintf(stderr, "Failed to open the file of name : %s", filename);
return EXIT_FAILURE;
}
char tofile[10];
printf("cat: ");
while (fgets(tofile, 10, stdin) != NULL) {
printf("cat: ");
fprintf(fp, "%s\n", tofile);
}
if (fclose(fp) != 0) {
fprintf(stderr, "Failed to close the file of name : %s", filename);
return EXIT_FAILURE;
}
return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}
Improvements
I don't know if it is just a little program or it aspires to become a greater program.
In the last case you should consider using defines and not a magical number such as
#define BUFFER_MAX_SIZE 10
char tofile[BUFFER_MAX_SIZE];
while (fgets(tofile, BUFFER_MAX_SIZE, stdin) != NULL) { ... }
This helps for readability and makes the program less apt to debug when modifying such a size. Because with the define all the part of the code needing the size will still be fully functional without modifying them.
Please also keep in mind that your tofile acts as a buffer, and it's really a small buffer that can easily be overflowed.

Answer 2

This will work. fgets() returns the string it reads from the specified file pointer. If this string returns only a newline ("\n"), that means nothing was entered at stdin.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
int main(void)
{
FILE *fp = fopen("test.txt","w");
// always check if fopen() == null
if (!fp) {
fprintf(stderr, "Could not write to file\n");
return 1;
}
char tofile[30];
printf("cat: ");
while (fgets(tofile, 30, stdin)) {
if (strcmp(tofile, "\n") == 0)
break;
fprintf(fp, "%s", tofile);
printf("cat: ");
}
// always fclose()
fclose(fp);
return 0;
}
Edited code.