fscanf() fclose() or reading file exit and ends program - c

Below is a part of my code which is having issues with file handling. The file opens fine with fopen but when I try to read or just close the file my program exits without an error. I tried to run this code independently and it works fine. Would really appreciate if someone could help me out which pointing out what I am doing wrong.
int ctrlSend(char *etherPort, uint8_t *inPayload, int payloadLen, int vlanID)
{
char intName [10]; // Interface name from file
int intVlan; // Interface VLAN from file
printf("In ctrlSend\n");
FILE * pFile; // File pointer
pFile = fopen ("vlan.conf","r");
while(!feof(pFile))
{
fscanf(pFile,"%s %d",intName,&intVlan)
printf("In ctrlSend while loop");
}
fclose (pFile);
return 0;
}
UPDATE1: Updated above code
UPDATE2: Alternate code below which has same issue.
int ctrlSend(char *etherPort, uint8_t *inPayload, int payloadLen, int vlanID)
{
printf("In ctrlSend\n");
char intName [10]; // Interface name from file
int intVlan; // Interface VLAN from file
FILE * pFile; // File pointer
pFile = fopen ("vlan.conf","r");
while (fscanf (pFile,"%s %d",intName,&intVlan) == 2)
{
printf("In ctrlSend while loop");
}
fclose (pFile);
return 0;
}
UPDATE3: Seems like the file is not opening, looking into it.

When you do while (!feof ...) you check each time if you have reach the end of the file. However, at no point your advance in the file (fread ?). That means this will never terminate.

Check whether the file exists or not. You should always check whether File pointer is NULL or not after opening the file. I think your program is unable to open the file and you are trying to use the file pointer without checking which is causing undefined behavior.

Related

can't access a place in memory

I'm trying to read a binary file of 32 bytes in C, however I'm keep getting "segmentation fault (code dumped)" when I run my program,
it would be great if somebody can help me out by pointing where did I go wrong?.
my code is here below:
int main()
{
char *binary = "/path/to/myfiles/program1.ijvm";
FILE *fp;
char buffer[32];
// Open read-only
fp = fopen(binary, "rb");
// Read 128 bytes into buffer
fread (buffer, sizeof(char), 32, fp);
return 0;
}
It's because of the path. Make sure that "/path/to/myfiles/program1.ijvm" points to an existing file.
You should always check the return value of fopen.
\\Open read-only
fp = fopen(binary, "rb");
if(fp==NULL){
perror("problem opening the file");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
Notice also that you are reading 32 bytes in your buffer and not 128 as your comment says.
You must check the return result from fopen().
I'm assuming you are getting the segfault in the fread() call because your data file doesn't exist, or couldn't be opened, and you are trying to work on a NULL FILE structure.
See the following safe code:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdint.h>
#define SIZE_BUFFER 32
int main()
{
char *binary = "data.txt";
FILE *fp = NULL;
char buffer[SIZE_BUFFER];
// Open read-only
fp = fopen(binary, "rb");
// Read SIZE_BUFFER bytes into buffer
if( fp )
{
printf("Elements read %ld\n", fread (buffer, sizeof(char), SIZE_BUFFER, fp));
fclose(fp);
}
else
{
// Use perror() here to show a text description of what failed and why
perror("Unable to open file: ");
}
return 0;
}
When I execute this code it doesn't crash and will print the number of elements read if the file is opened or it will print "Unable to open file" if the file could not be opened.
As mentioned in the comments you should also close the file being exiting. Another thing you can do is the following:
FILE *fp = fopen(.....);
Instead of declaring and assigning in two separate steps.
There are two possible reasons
The fopen(3) function failed due to some reason, which means fp is NULL, and then you are trying to use the null-pointer in fread(3). This can crash. #OznOg has already given a subtle hint to look into this direction.
If the fopen call is a success (i.e. fp is non-NULL after calling fopen), the code can still crash because you are reading 32 chars into the variable binary, while binary has been initialized with only 30 chars.

Check if a file is empty or not

How can I check if a text file has something written or not. I tried:
LOGIC checkfile(char * filename)
{
FILE *pf;
pf=fopen(filename,"wt");
fseek(pf,0,SEEK_END);
if(ftell(pf)==0)
printf("empty");
}
This function returns empty everytime, even in my text file I have few words or numbers written.
The problem is that you opened the file for writing. When you do that, everything in the file is lost, and the length of the file is truncated to 0.
So you need to open the file for reading. And the easiest way to see if the file is empty is to try to read the first character with fgetc. If fgetc returns EOF, then the file is empty.
First of all: DO NOT OPEN THE FILE FOR WRITING!
second: for knowing about file status in C you can use fstat which is in sys headear file!
You can use struct stat for using this function
here is a simple example:
#include <sys/stat.h>
int main(void)
{
int fields = 0;
int size = 0;
// Open the file test.txt through open()
// Note that since the call to open directly gives
// integer file descriptor so we used open here.
// One can also use fopen() that returns FILE*
// object. Use fileno() in that case to convert
// FILE* object into the integer file descriptor
if(fields = open(file_path, "r")){
struct stat buf;
fstat(fields, &buf);
size = (int)buf.st_size;
}
printf("size of file is %d", size);
return 0;
}
Note: I just include a header file that related to fstat. You can add other header files yourself
What about using fscanf to read the file, and check if something was actually read?
FILE *fp;
char buff[255] = "";
fp = fopen(filename, "r");
fscanf(fp, "%s", buff);
if (!*buff)
printf("Empty\n");
else
printf("%s\n", buff);
fclose(fp);

Chmod in C assigning wrong permissions

The following is my code for a method that copies a file from a path to a file to a directory provided as the destination. The copy works perfectly fine, however my chmod call assigns the wrong permissions to the copied file in the destination. If the permission in the source is 644, the copied file has a permission of 170 or 120.
I have been attempting to debug this for hours and it's driving me slightly crazy so any help is greatly appreciated.
void copy_file(char* src, char* dest) {
char a;
//extract file name through a duplicate ptr
char* fname = strdup(src);
char* dname = basename(fname);
//open read and write streams
FILE* read;
FILE* write;
read = fopen(src, "r");
chdir(dest);
write = fopen(dname, "w");
//error checking
if (read == NULL) //|| (write == NULL))
{
perror("Read Error: ");
exit(0);
}
else if (write == NULL)
{
perror("Write Error: ");
exit(0);
}
//write from src to dest char by char
while (1){
a = fgetc(read);
if (a == EOF)
{
break;
}
fputc(a, write);
}
//close files
fclose(read);
fclose(write);
// this is where I attempt to assign source file permissions
//and it goes horribly wrong
struct stat src_st;
if(stat(src, &src_st)){
perror("stat: ");
}
chmod(dname, src_st.st_mode);
printf("%o\n", src_st.st_mode & 0777);
}
You fopen(src, "r"), then you chdir(dest). This means that when you later call stat(src, &src_st), there is no reason to think that stat will access the same file as fopen did, or indeed that stat will access any file at all.
If stat fails, you proceed to call chmod anyway, so you pass whatever random junk was in src_st.st_mode to chmod.
You should use fstat(fileno(read), &src_st) before calling fclose(src), instead of calling stat(src, &src_st).
The basic problem is you have to check your system calls like fopen, chdir, and stat immediately.
For example, first thing I tried was copy_file( "test.data", "test2.data" ) not realizing it expected a destination directory.
char* fname = strdup(src);
char* dname = basename(fname);
dname is now test.data, same as the source.
read = fopen(src, "r"); // succeeds
chdir(dest); // fails
write = fopen(dname, "w"); // blows away test.data, the source
You do eventually check read and write, but after the damage has been done.
Blowing away your source file is really bad. It's important that your code deals with failed system calls. If you don't, it will sail along causing confusion and destruction.
Most system calls in C return 0 for success. This is an anti-pattern where the return value is an error flag, so false is failure, and anything else indicates what kind of error (though stat doesn't use that, it uses errno).
When it fails, stat returns -1 which is true. So this is the wrong way around.
struct stat src_st;
if(stat(src, &src_st)){
perror("stat: ");
}
Instead, you have to check for non-zero.
struct stat src_st;
if(stat(src, &src_st) != 0 ){
// Note that I don't use perror, it doesn't provide enough information.
fprintf(stderr, "Could not stat %s: %s\n", src, strerror(errno));
exit(1);
}
As you can guess this gets tedious in the extreme, and you're going to forget, or do it slightly different each time. You'll want to write wrappers around those functions to do the error handling for you.
FILE *fopen_checked( const char *file, const char *mode ) {
FILE *fp = fopen(file, mode);
if( file == NULL ) {
fprintf(stderr, "Could not open '%s' for '%s': %s", file, mode, strerror(errno));
exit(1);
}
return fp;
}
It's not the best error handling, but it will at least ensure your code appropriately halts and catches fire.
A note about chdir: if you can avoid it don't use it. chdir affects the global state of the program, the current working directory, and globals add complexity to everything. It's very, very easy for a function to change directory and not change back, as yours does. Now your process is in a weird state.
For example, if one did copy_file( "somefile", "foo" ) this leaves the program in foo/. If they then did copy_file( "otherfile", "foo" ) they'd be trying to copy foo/otherfile to foo/foo/otherfile.
And, as #robmayoff pointed out, your stat fails because the process is now in a different directory. So even the function doing the chdir is confused by it.
Ensuring that your functions always chdir back to the original directory in a language like C is very difficult and greatly complicates error handling. Instead, stay in your original directory and use functions like basename to join paths together.
Finally, avoid mixing your file operations. Use filenames or use file descriptors, but try not to use both. That means if you're using fopen, use fstat and fchmod. You might have to use fileno to get a file descriptor out of the FILE pointer.
This avoids having to carry around and keep in sync two pieces of data, the file descriptor and the filename. It also avoids issues with chdir or the file being renamed or even deleted, the file descriptor will still work so long as it remains open.
This is also a problem:
char a;
...
while (1){
a = fgetc(read);
if (a == EOF)
{
break;
}
fputc(a, write);
}
fgetc() returns int, not char. Per the C Standard, 7.21.7.1 The fgetc function:
7.21.7.1 The fgetc function
Synopsis
#include <stdio.h>
int fgetc(FILE *stream);
Assuming sizeof( int ) > sizeof( char ), char values are signed, 2s-complement integers, and EOF is an int defined to be -1 (all very common values), reading a file with char a = fgetc( stream ); will fail upon reading a valid 0xFF character value. And if your implementation's default char value is unsigned char, char a = fgetc( stream ); will never produce a value that matches EOF.

File pointer still NULL after inizialization?

Hi guys i have a problem when I try to open a file. In a function when i try to read an existing text file, after i initialized the file pointer i still get the error "cannot open the file", this is the code:
FILE * fp;
fp = NULL;
fp=fopen("results.txt","r");
if(fp==NULL){
printf("error!");
exit(1);
}
using the debugger i can see the fp initialized to NULL, as requested. In the next order i can see its value changed to '0x751d9c68'.
So now it's not NULL, but the program still prints error.
PS: I used the same code to open another file in another program (that works): as always the initial value of fp is NULL, then it's changed to '0x751d9c68' (yes, it has the same value in both programs), but this time works, because fp is in fact different from NULL.
PPS: I'm using Codelite, if that helps.
EDIT: adding a printf("%p\n", fp); prints this "751D9C68"
Atleta * leggiRisultati (char fileName [], int * dim){FILE * fp; int count, i;
Atleta temp;
fp = NULL;
fp=fopen(fileName,"r");
printf("%p\n", fp);
if(fp==NULL){
perror("Error");
}
while (fscanf (fp, "%s%s%d%d%d", temp.cod, temp.nome, &temp.tN, &temp.tB, &temp.tC)== 5)
count ++;
rewind (fp);
Atleta * atl = (Atleta*) malloc(count * sizeof(Atleta));
for (i=0; i<count; i++){
int nr = fscanf(fp, "%s%s%d%d%d",atl[i].cod, atl[i].nome, &atl[i].tN, &atl[i].tB, &atl[i].tC);
//just controlling if the reading is done properly
if (nr < 4) {
printf ("cannot read the file %s",fileName);
exit (1);
}
} fclose(fp);
return atl;
}
I then use this function in this main
int main (){ int dim; Atleta * a; int i;
a = leggiRisultati("risultati.txt", &dim);
for (i =0; i<dim;i++){
stampaRisultato(a[i]);}
return 0;
}
Where "stampaRisultato" prints a line of the file just read and "Atleta" is a struct defined as:
typedef struct {
char cod[5];
char nome[21];
int tN, tB, tC;
}Atleta;
And last, yes the text file is in the same directory as my executable, yes I have the permission to open the file, the file contains a certain number of lines with 2 strings and 3 int each.
Your code should work, I can only think of 3 things that may cause this issue.
In my experience, it's oftentimes the simplist mistakes that get you, because you're so focused on the more complex elements that some things slip your mind. I can't see the rest of your program, so forgive me if any of these answers seem patronizing. Here are the first things I would check:
1.) file permissions. Make sure you're a user with permission to access and/or change the file in question. This is a pretty easy fix on linux, but I don't know about windows.
2.) file location. Make sure your text file is in the same directory as your executable. You'll need to do this if you don't specify file location.
3.) #include statements. Sometimes even the best of us get too excited to get into the bulk of our program, and we forget to include stdio.h and/or stdlib.h. If this is the case you may run into an issue where you set the file pointer to null, and then the fopen function doesn't run, so your pointer remains null.

access always returns -1, even when the file exists

I'm having a bit of a problem with a lab I'm working on for school.
What it's supposed to do is check to see if a file exists or not. My code works fine except one line, when I try to check to see if the file exists or not. Even if the file exists, it's returning as if it's not there always. Yet if I hard code the file name into the program it works fine. I'm just trying to figure out what's causing the file name to be interpreted wrong when I pass it into accept (or fopen I've tried both).
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
int main() {
//open lab4.in
FILE *file = fopen("lab4.in", "r");
if (file == 0) {
printf("Unable to open lab4.in for reading");
exit(-1);
}
//get the file name to check
char filetocheck[120], output[12];
fgets(filetocheck, 120, file);
int i;
//open lab4.out for writing
unlink("lab4.out");
FILE *write = fopen("lab4.out", "w");
fgets(output, 12, file);
//check the file is there and write the characters to lab4.out
if (access(filetocheck, F_OK) == -1){
for (i=5; i<10; i++){
fputc(output[i], write);
}
} else {
for (i=0; i<5; i++){
fputc(output[i], write);
}
}
//close the files at the end
fclose(write);
fclose(file);
}
Okay, when an I/O operation like this fails, as well as the -1, you get a result in a global int errno;
Where you have your printf, replace that with
perror(argv[0]); /* or something else useful. See below */
and add the declaration
int errno;
between your #includes and the int main, and you'll get a useful error message.
(PS: Two things to check: make sure the file's where you expect it, and use ls -l to make sure it's readable.)
Update
Dammit, that's what I get for not checking the man page. The argument to perror is indeed a string, used to preface the error message.
In this statement:
fgets(filetocheck, 120, file);
you may be getting an unwanted carriage return as part of your filetocheck buffer.

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