Thread: Reading a record from a File

  1. #1
    Registered User
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    Sep 2004
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    Reading a record from a File

    Ok, quick question about reading a record from a file.

    The format of the record is:

    qty;cost;stockNumber;description:

    The first two are ints and the last two are chars.

    This how I'm reading the record:

    Code:
    while(fscanf(fp,"%d;%d;%[^;];%[^:]:", &q, &c, stNum, desc) == 4)

    Right now it is only reading up to the : (colon). The problem is that I want the colon to be included at end of the description. I tried a few things and I only get the first record go into other variables I have.

    Thanks.

  2. #2
    Hello,

    The reason why your : is not staying in your fscanf() sequence is this.

    A set format flag is as all flags started with a % followed by a sequence of characters between an open and a closing bracket. For example, %[^:].

    The ^ denotes not or excluding. This specific format flag defines the rule: read the string of all characters until reaching the character defined after ^, i.e. all characters, until the character after ^ matches, will be read into the variable name.

    Side note: Whitespaces will be read in this case. The set format flag is also special in the way that initial whitespaces will not be skipped as it was in the case for %s and for most other format flags. To skip initial whitespaces you can preceed the format flag with a space. When scanf sees one or more spaces in the format string, it will match these with any number of whitespaces.

    With this in mind, you cannot simply save the : after the description, or from what I know. You can concatentate or in some other means add it back if you see fit.


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  3. #3
    Code Goddess Prelude's Avatar
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    What comes after a record? Is there a single record for each line, or does the colon act as a separator? If it's the former then %[^\n] would work better than %[^:]:. If it's the latter then you won't find an elegant way to use the colon as both a terminator and include it in the string with a single call to scanf and no helpers.
    My best code is written with the delete key.

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