User input file

Hey guys, so I have a bit of a silly problem. I'm starting to write a program in MS visual studio that requires me to open a user specified file. I've created the file in notepad, but when I run the code, it always tells me that the file doesn't exist and that's not true. Here is my code:

Code:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>


#ifdef _MSC_VER
#include <crtdbg.h>  // needed to check for memory leaks (Windows only!)
#endif


#include "stackADT.h"


int main (void)
{
//  Local Definitions
    FILE *fp;
    char filename[100] = "";


//  Statements
    printf("\n\n\t\tHomework 1: STACK ADT\n\n");
    printf("\tThis program ...\n" );
    printf("Please enter the name of the file that you want to use: \n");
    scanf("%s", &filename);
    fp = fopen(filename, "r");
            if(fp == NULL)
            {
                    printf("Your filename was not found!\n");
                    exit(100);
            }












    printf("\n\t\tThank you for using the program,"
           "\n\t\tHave a great day!\n");


    #ifdef _MSC_VER
    printf( _CrtDumpMemoryLeaks() ? "Memory Leak\n" : "No Memory Leak\n");
    #endif


    return 0;


} // main

Also, for some reason my #include stackADT.h is not recognized... but that's a piece of code that my teacher specified. Why does the compiler not like it?

Thank you for your time.

I've tried specifying the directory path and everything without any luck... Anyone have any ideas? Oh and I removed the & in front of filename for the scanf. I realized that that was an error.

In theory, there looks like there should be nothing wrong with this code. Try (i) printing out the name of the file before you try to open it and (ii) printing the value of errno when it fails (there are several reasons an fopen() can fail):

Code:

#include <errno.h>
#include <string.h>

// ...
    printf("Opening file '%s'\n", filename);
    fp = fopen(filename, "r");
    if(fp == NULL)
    {
        printf("Error opening file: %s\n", strerror(errno));
        exit(100);
    }

(Then post output if this doesn't make things clearer...)

Okay, so I did the printf statement before opening the file and it prints out the file name just fine. When I use the strerror it says "No such file or directory". Any other suggestions?

IDEs usually set a working directory, so you probably won't find files in other places.

If you're feeling confused about that problem, you could ask the user for the path to the file as well.

I tried specifying the file path and everything. Its getting really annoying. Do you know where the IDE working directory is for visual studio? Because the user input is really just me. I'm not planning on anyone else using the program. Its just that the teacher wants us to get the file name from the user. But I even tried skipping the user and just manually writing the file name and even the path. But still, nothing.

I tried specifying the file path and everything. Its getting really annoying, Its getting really annoying.

That's what we're here for. You should explain how you did that in some detail. If you did it with new code, you might have messed it up and the answer could be simple.

Do you know where the IDE working directory is for visual studio?

Usually the same as the current project folder.

I tried specifying the path with C:\\User\Anastasia\Documents... And a bunch of other methods. Basically using the path that I see when I open that notepad document. I tried adding .txt at the end and removing it. I've bypassed the user input and simply typed in the filename/pathname in the fopen statement. Not quite sure what else I can do. Oh, and I tried saving the notepad doc in the same folder as visual studio as well.

A lot of that sounds really wrong.

First of all, using backslashes in strings - you need to escape each backslash character ('\\'). [edit] And the console will escape input for you, so you don't need it for user input, that's important. And I forgot. [/edit]
The extension is part of the file name, don't remove it.
You cannot take a variable like filename and glue it to a file path without code to concatenate the string. Concatenate is a real word, by the way.

If you have a string that is big enough you can do something like:

Code:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

void RemoveNewlines(char *s)
{
    char *nl = strrchr(s, '\n');
    if (nl!=NULL)
        *nl = '\0';
}

int main(void)
{
    char OpenMe[FILENAME_MAX] = "";
    char enteredpath[FILENAME_MAX / 2];
    char enteredname[FILENAME_MAX / 2];

    FILE *fil = NULL;

    printf("Please enter the file path:\n");
    fgets(enteredpath, FILENAME_MAX / 2, stdin);
    RemoveNewlines(enteredpath);

    printf("Please enter the file name:\n");
    fgets(enteredname, FILENAME_MAX / 2, stdin);
    RemoveNewlines(enteredname);

    strcat(OpenMe, enteredpath);
    strcat(OpenMe, enteredname);

    printf("Opening %s...\n", OpenMe);

    fil = fopen(OpenMe, "r");
    if (fil!=NULL)
    {
        printf("good\n");
        fclose(fil);
    }
    return 0;
}
/*
Please enter the file path:
C:\Users\Josh2\My Documents\
Please enter the file name:
hello.txt
Opening C:\Users\Josh2\My Documents\hello.txt...
good
*/

Of course, reading the path requires reading in spaces so scanf(%s", enteredpath); is not sufficient. Use fgets and remove any '\n' in the path.

Put the file into your Debug/bin files for VS to use the file.

Yes! Thank you! That's what I did and it worked!