creating multiple files

[lime]

If I had an array of structures (like a database say) and I entered in 5 people. How could I make a program that prints out a file for each of the people without actually coding the filename into the program.

For example there's a guy named Joe in my database. I want to print out all of the info in his struct file (name and age for example). What I'm trying to do is make a program that runs through the array and for each person make a file called name.txt which contains a name and an age. So for Joe's file, it would be joe.txt. But I don't know how to do this without coding file=fopen("joe.txt", "w") into the program.

This is a bit verbose and I don't know if this is very clear but I've tried to be. So yes, any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[WaltP]

create a vraible like fname that you can copy the person's name into, concat ".txt" then use
file=fopen(fname, "w")

[petermichaux]

I would do what Walt says. Just incase you need more direction:

I didn't run the code below but you'll need lines like it.

You have to make sure that the fname character array is plently long enough to hold the longest first name and the .txt after it. You can just make it way too long

struct person databasename[30];
char fname[500];
FILE *fp;

//copy the 11th persons name
strcpy(fname,databasename[10].name);

//add the file extension
strcat(fname,".txt");

fp=fopen(filename,"w");

//error checking to see that file did open

[lime]

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

struct person
{
	char name[20];
	int receiver;

};

int main(void)
{
	struct person databasename[3];
	char *fname;
	FILE *fp;
	int i;

	for(i=0;i<3;i++)
	{
		printf("Enter name of player #%d:", i+1);
		scanf("%s", databasename[i].name);
	}

	for(i=0;i<3;i++)
	{
		strcpy(fname,databasename[1].name);
		strcat(fname,".txt");
		printf("%s\n", databasename[1].name);
		fp=fopen(fname,"w");
		fprintf(fp,"TEST");
		fclose(fp);
	}
	return 0;
}

output should be 3 text files that say "TEST"

[lime]

Ignore the "int receiver" in the struct code. I just copied it from my actual program. It doesn't really have anything to do with this example program (which I can't seem to get working anyway).

[Salem]

> char *fname;
Is not pointing to any allocated memory

char fname[25];
would be better

[WaltP]

Originally posted by lime
output should be 3 text files that say "TEST"

And what does it do. Doncha think that's an important piece of information to pass on?

[Dave_Sinkula]

	for(i=0;i<3;i++)
	{
		strcpy(fname,databasename[1].name);
		strcat(fname,".txt");
		printf("%s\n", databasename[1].name);
		fp=fopen(fname,"w");
		fprintf(fp,"TEST");
		fclose(fp);
	}

[lime]

Salem's suggestion did the trick. Thanks everyone.