Where to put files to be read in on a Mac

OK this is more of a logistics question than anything. I'm running XCode on my Macbook right now and can't figure out how to read in a file in my program.

Basically there is a pixel_load.dat file that needs to be read in the program.

Code:

#define FILENAME "pixel_load.dat"

 //Start of main function
 int main(void)
 {
    // declarations
	 FILE *pixel_load = NULL;
	 int i, num_measurements, N;
	 double displacement_pixels[MAX_VALUES], load[MAX_VALUES];

 
    pixel_load = fopen(FILENAME, "r");
	if(pixel_load == NULL)
	{
		printf("Could not open data file\n");
		return -1;
	}

My professor said something about you can put a file in a certain spot so that you don't have to put a path to the file in the #define part. Where might that be on a Mac?

Also I tried just putting it in my program's folder right beside the main.c file and putting that path (my path was something like "\\Users\\JakeeStoltz\\Photograph\\pixel_load.dat" ) in the #define part but that didn't seem to work..

If you don't specify any path you should write (and also read) from the highest position in your hard disk.

in your case :

Leopard/pixel_load.dat

where Leopard is the name of your hard disk primary partition.

Cheers

BTW: If you use cocoa framework I would use
[[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"pixel_load" ofType:@"dat"];
in order to get the path of your file wich it should be in the folder as your Xcode project.

It may need to be in the same folder where the executable is. Instead of where the source is. Possibly a debug or release subfolder if it's anything like Microsoft's environment.

Originally Posted by nonoob

It may need to be in the same folder where the executable is. Instead of where the source is. Possibly a debug or release subfolder if it's anything like Microsoft's environment.

Bingo! I put it right next to the executable and that seemed to be the trick. Thanks!