Thread: feof()

I know that feof() is not supposed to be used as a loop condition, but what is it supposed to be used for?

Originally Posted by XSquared

I know that feof() is not supposed to be used as a loop condition, but what is it supposed to be used for?

It can be -- just not the way it is typically attempted. Here is an example from the standard.

Code:

#include <stdio.h>
/* ... */
int count; float quant; char units[21], item[21];
do {
count = fscanf(stdin, "%f%20s of %20s", &quant, units, item);
fscanf(stdin,"%*[^\n]");
} while (!feof(stdin) && !ferror(stdin));

Another good note:

An end-of-file and a read error can be distinguished by use of the feof and ferror functions.

Originally Posted by Dave_Sinkula

It can be -- just not the way it is typically attempted. Here is an example from the standard.

Code:

#include <stdio.h>
/* ... */
int count; float quant; char units[21], item[21];
do {
count = fscanf(stdin, "%f%20s of %20s", &quant, units, item);
fscanf(stdin,"%*[^\n]");
} while (!feof(stdin) && !ferror(stdin));

Another good note:

The fgets function returns NULL in two cases : 1] If the end of file is reached and there are no more characters left to read or, 2] If an error is encountered while reading the file.

So, when we break out of the fgets loop we cannot be certain if we could read all the file sucessfully since the return value of fgets contains no such information.

So when can check the value of feof to check if the end of file was actually reached.