Files in C
Published: 2021-12-01 14:47:43

C File Handling
In this tutorial, you will learn about file handling in C. You will learn to handle standard I/O in C using fprintf(), fscanf(), fread(), fwrite(), fseek() etc. with the help of examples.

A file is a container in computer storage devices used for storing data.

Why files are needed?
When a program is terminated, the entire data is lost. Storing in a file will preserve your data even if the program terminates.
If you have to enter a large number of data, it will take a lot of time to enter them all.
However, if you have a file containing all the data, you can easily access the contents of the file using a few commands in C.
You can easily move your data from one computer to another without any changes.

Types of Files
When dealing with files, there are two types of files you should know about:

Text files
Binary files
1. Text files
Text files are the normal .txt files. You can easily create text files using any simple text editors such as Notepad.

When you open those files, you'll see all the contents within the file as plain text. You can easily edit or delete the contents.

They take minimum effort to maintain, are easily readable, and provide the least security and takes bigger storage space.

2. Binary files
Binary files are mostly the .bin files in your computer.

Instead of storing data in plain text, they store it in the binary form (0's and 1's).

They can hold a higher amount of data, are not readable easily, and provides better security than text files.

File Operations
In C, you can perform four major operations on files, either text or binary:

Creating a new file
Opening an existing file
Closing a file
Reading from and writing information to a file
Working with files
When working with files, you need to declare a pointer of type file. This declaration is needed for communication between the file and the program.

FILE *fptr;Types of Files
When dealing with files, there are two types of files you should know about:

Text files
Binary files
1. Text files
Text files are the normal .txt files. You can easily create text files using any simple text editors such as Notepad.

When you open those files, you'll see all the contents within the file as plain text. You can easily edit or delete the contents.

They take minimum effort to maintain, are easily readable, and provide the least security and takes bigger storage space.

2. Binary files
Binary files are mostly the .bin files in your computer.

Instead of storing data in plain text, they store it in the binary form (0's and 1's).

They can hold a higher amount of data, are not readable easily, and provides better security than text files.

File Operations
In C, you can perform four major operations on files, either text or binary:

Creating a new file
Opening an existing file
Closing a file
Reading from and writing information to a file
Working with files
When working with files, you need to declare a pointer of type file. This declaration is needed for communication between the file and the program.

FILE *fptr;

Opening a file - for creation and edit
Opening a file is performed using the fopen() function defined in the stdio.h header file.

The syntax for opening a file in standard I/O is:

ptr = fopen("fileopen","mode");
For example,

fopen("E:\\cprogram\\newprogram.txt","w");

fopen("E:\\cprogram\\oldprogram.bin","rb");