Opening a file using relative path - c

Question

The following code is supposed to work as follows: print the list of the files in a directory, and print the content of each .c file.
it works fine when executed in UNIX for the same directory: ./a.out ./
However, I was not able to make it work for ./a.out ../differentDir execution.
I know that if the absolute path is provided as an argument, I could use argv[1] for that. However, when it is provided in a form of a relative path I am lost.
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <dirent.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <string.h>
#define BUFFSIZE 32768
int main(int argc, char **argv) {
char buf[BUFFSIZE];
DIR *dp;
struct dirent *dirp;
char filename[80];
int name_length;
FILE *fp;
if (argc != 2) {
fprintf(stderr, "usage: %s dir_name\n", argv[0]);
exit(1);
}
if ((dp = opendir(argv[1])) == NULL ) {
fprintf(stderr, "can't open '%s'\n", argv[1]);
exit(1);
}
while ((dirp = readdir(dp)) != NULL ){
printf("%s\n", dirp->d_name);
memset(filename, '\0', sizeof(filename));
strcpy(filename, dirp->d_name);
printf(" ** %s ", filename);
name_length = strlen(filename);
printf(" name_length=%d \n", name_length);
if (findC(filename)) // checking if the file has a .c extension
{
fp=fopen(filename, "r");
if (fp == NULL)
fprintf(stderr, "Can't open .C file!\n");
else
{// if the file was opened successfuly:
do
{
fgets(buf,BUFFSIZE,fp); // reading each line until buffer is full or until reaching whitespace
buf[strlen(buf)-1]='\0'; // removing the trailing whitespace from the buffer
puts(buf);
}
while (!feof(fp));
printf("\n\n");
fclose(fp);
}
}
}
closedir(dp);
return(0);
}
/*FindC method gets a c-string that represents a file name; returns 1 if the file ends with .C extension, else returns 0*/
int findC(char * name)
{
int len = strlen(name);
if (len>=2 && name[len-2]=='.' && tolower(name[len-1])=='c')
return 1;
return 0;
}

Answer 1

Upon opening the file to read, the file pathname needs to also be relative.
// Form prefix for complete relative file name
char filename[MAXPATH];
strcpy(filename, argv[1]);
// append '/' if directory path does not end in '/'
if (TBD_code(filename)) {
strcat(filename, "/");
}
char *end = filename[strlen(filename)];
while ((dirp = readdir(dp)) != NULL ){
printf("%s\n", dirp->d_name);
if (findC(dirp->d_name)) {
// append filename to prefix
strcpy(end, dirp->d_name);
fp=fopen(filename, "r");
...

Answer 2

You can use realpath(argv1...) like in this example. realpath will return the absolute path for a relative path.
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <limits.h>
int main(int argc, char **argv) {
char *path = "../..";
char buff[PATH_MAX + 1]; /* not sure about the "+ 1" */
char *res = realpath(path, buff);
if (res) {
printf("This source is at %s.\n", buff);
} else {
perror("realpath");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
return 0;
}
To include the desired behavior in your program, you can use realpathin your code:
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <limits.h>
#include <ctype.h>
#include <dirent.h>
#include <string.h>
#define BUFFSIZE 32768
int main(int argc, char **argv) {
char buf[BUFFSIZE];
DIR *dp;
struct dirent *dirp;
char filename[80];
int name_length;
FILE *fp;
char buff[PATH_MAX + 1]; /* not sure about the "+ 1" */
if (argc != 2) {
fprintf(stderr, "usage: %s dir_name\n", argv[0]);
exit(1);
}
char *res = realpath(argv[1], buff);
if ((dp = opendir(res)) == NULL ) {
fprintf(stderr, "can't open '%s'\n", argv[1]);
exit(1);
}
while ((dirp = readdir(dp)) != NULL ){
printf("%s\n", dirp->d_name);
memset(filename, '\0', sizeof(filename));
strcpy(filename, dirp->d_name);
printf(" ** %s ", filename);
name_length = strlen(filename);
printf(" name_length=%d \n", name_length);
if (findC(filename)) // checking if the file has a .c extension
{
fp=fopen(filename, "r");
if (fp == NULL)
fprintf(stderr, "Can't open .C file!\n");
else
{// if the file was opened successfuly:
do
{
fgets(buf,BUFFSIZE,fp); // reading each line until buffer is full or until reaching whitespace
buf[strlen(buf)-1]='\0'; // removing the trailing whitespace from the buffer
puts(buf);
}
while (!feof(fp));
printf("\n\n");
fclose(fp);
}
}
}
closedir(dp);
return(0);
}
/*FindC method gets a c-string that represents a file name; returns 1 if the file ends with .C extension, else returns 0*/
int findC(char * name)
{
int len = strlen(name);
if (len>=2 && name[len-2]=='.' && tolower(name[len-1])=='c')
return 1;
return 0;
}

Answer 3

You could first change to the directory chdir either with relative or absolute path and the get the absolute path via the getcwd
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <dirent.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <string.h>
#define BUFFSIZE 32768
#define PATH_SIZE 512
int main(int argc, char **argv) {
char buf[BUFFSIZE];
char path[PATH_SIZE];
DIR *dp;
struct dirent *dirp;
char filename[80];
int name_length, r;
FILE *fp;
if (argc != 2) {
fprintf(stderr, "usage: %s dir_name\n", argv[0]);
exit(1);
}
strcpy(path, argv[1]);
r = chdir(path);
if( r != 0 )
{
printf("Invalid path '%s'\n",path);
exit(1);
}
getcwd(path,PATH_SIZE);
if ((dp = opendir(path)) == NULL ) {
fprintf(stderr, "can't open '%s'\n", argv[1]);
exit(1);
}
while ((dirp = readdir(dp)) != NULL ){
printf("%s\n", dirp->d_name);
memset(filename, '\0', sizeof(filename));
strcpy(filename, dirp->d_name);
printf(" ** %s ", filename);
name_length = strlen(filename);
printf(" name_length=%d \n", name_length);
if (findC(filename)) // checking if the file has a .c extension
{
fp=fopen(filename, "r");
if (fp == NULL)
fprintf(stderr, "Can't open .C file!\n");
else
{// if the file was opened successfuly:
do
{
fgets(buf,BUFFSIZE,fp); // reading each line until buffer is full or until reaching whitespace
buf[strlen(buf)-1]='\0'; // removing the trailing whitespace from the buffer
puts(buf);
}
while (!feof(fp));
printf("\n\n");
fclose(fp);
}
}
}
closedir(dp);
return(0);
}
/*FindC method gets a c-string that represents a file name; returns 1 if the file ends with .C extension, else returns 0*/
int findC(char * name)
{
int len = strlen(name);
if (len>=2 && name[len-2]=='.' && tolower(name[len-1])=='c')
return 1;
return 0;
}