reading two numbers in the same line from a file

Hi,

I am very new to C and I'm difficulty reading two specific numbers in the same line from a text file.

For example, I have a txt file with lines that look like this:

line 1 :000002 0.6749 0.3434 0.87 0.8234 -0.0003 0.345 121.77 0.673956 0.256482
line 2: 000002 0.4738 0.1946 0.28 0.1659 -0.0002 0.562 103.67 0.194628 0.103829

The highlighted numbers at the end of each line are the ones I want to read and then use them in a function. Let's say I wanted to write a program that would read and then add together the last two numbers of each line. So it would add the two red numbers together and then it would add the two green numbers together.

I know how to use fgets to read multiple numbers if each line in the file is just one number, but that's all I know how to do. My program so far is:

Code:

#include <stdio.h>
FILE *file;
int main()
{
float limit;
char line[50];
file = fopen("nfile.txt", "r");
while (fgets(line,20,file)!=NULL)
{
sscanf(line,"%f", &limit);
printf("%.0f\n", limit);
}
fclose(file);
return 0;
}

Fgets() will read upto (and including) a newline if you give it a buffer big enough. There is no point in using tiny arrays like:

Code:

char line[50];

Unless you are positive the lines are always that length. This space is from your stack memory, which is assigned by the OS is a big chunk (megabytes) whether you use it or not, so why not just:

Code:

char line[1024];

Computers work well with power of two numbers and so they are good for memory assignments. 1Kb should be plenty of space. Now you can read in an entire line:

Code:

fgets(line, 1024, file);

You can parse the line with sscanf(), as you are, or strtok(). Here's a hint about sscanf: the * qualifier tells (s)scanf to discard this item, ie, it is not put into a variable. So if I wanted the third number in the line:

Code:

if (sscanf(line, "%*f %*f %f", &limit) != 1) puts("scanf() failed!");

Checking the return value of scanf to make sure it read 1 item (the discarded ones do not count) can save you a lot of hassle.

> while (fgets(line,20,file)!=NULL)
Well you need to pass a decently sized buffer to make sure you get the whole line.
If line is a char array, then saying sizeof(line) is a nice way of keeping everything in sync.

Then you could do something like
sscanf(line, "%*f %*f %f", &result );

Add as many %*f (or other %* formats) to skip what you're not interested in.

And if you don't know how many numbers are on each line ahead of time (e.g., if it changes from row to row), then you'll have to work a little harder since you can't use a single format string for all the lines.

Originally Posted by Telume9

Hi,

I am very new to C and I'm difficulty reading two specific numbers in the same line from a text file.

For example, I have a txt file with lines that look like this:

line 1 :000002 0.6749 0.3434 0.87 0.8234 -0.0003 0.345 121.77 0.673956 0.256482
line 2: 000002 0.4738 0.1946 0.28 0.1659 -0.0002 0.562 103.67 0.194628 0.103829

The highlighted numbers at the end of each line are the ones I want to read and then use them in a function.

Those last two numbers are not uniquely marked in any way that makes them easy to discern from the rest, so read the whole line in with fscanf() to pull out all the numbers, and only use the last 2...

Code:

double num1, num2, total;
double scrap;

// open your file

fscanf(FILE, "%lf %lf %lf %lf %lf %lf %lf %lf %lf %lf",&scrap,&scrap,&scrap,&scrap,&scrap,&scrap,&scrap,&scrap,&num1,&num2);
total = num1 + num2;

....or perhaps just use * so then you don't need the scrap variable.....

fgets + strrchr + sscanf


Quzah.

oooooo, thank you all for the help it worked!

Originally Posted by Telume9

oooooo, thank you all for the help it worked!

to make your code simpler you can use the getline function ...this way you read a full line and the buffer is resized automatically if the line is longer than the preallocated one

Then you can simply use strtok to tokenize the string into tokens.

Should look something like this:

Code:

FILE *pFile = fopen(filename, "r+");
//handle file not existing case ..

int line_size = 0;
size_t line_buffer_size = 100;
char* line_buffer = malloc((line_buffer_size + 1) * sizeof(char));

while ((line_size = getline(&line_buffer, &line_buffer_size, pFile)) != -1) {
     //tokenize string and get the values you need
     pch = strtok(result_array[i], "\t");
     int col = 0;

     while (pch != NULL) {
          pch = strtok(NULL, "\t");
          col++;
	  if (col == #desired_col_number) {
             // do stuff....
  	  }
      }
}

Two things to note:

1. The input file has a standard format so all the extra work for strtok does not make it an easier solution. In fact that makes it much harder and there are more areas for potential failure. The previous posted solutions are much simpler and easier to understand.

2. getline is not a standard C function and thus the code is not portable.

1. yes true, I think I was aiming at a more generic solution ..rather than typing many %f's to skip the string.

2.good point...this will only work using gnu gcc.

Originally Posted by AndrewHunter

Two things to note:

1. The input file has a standard format so all the extra work for strtok does not make it an easier solution. In fact that makes it much harder and there are more areas for potential failure. The previous posted solutions are much simpler and easier to understand.

2. getline is not a standard C function and thus the code is not portable.