How to write in a file using fscanf and fprintf

Hello guys!

I have a question concerning fscanf and fprintf

I do:

/* The format of the id.dat file is : e.g.
1 David Jones
2 Johan Smith
3 Sarlot James
etc...
*/

Code:

#include <stdio.h>

int main() {

int id;
char fname[100];
char lname[100];

FILE * fp = fopen("id.dat","r");

fscanf(fp,"%d %s %s",&id,fname,lname);

while(!feof(fp)) {

          printf("%d %s %s\n",id,fname,lname);
          fscanf(fp,"%d %s %s",&id,fname,lname);

         /* Here it prints all the elements that are registered  in the file */
}
       
/* Now i want to place in the end of the file a new element e.g. 4 John Rino */
/* I do: */


fprintf(fp,"%d %s %s\n",4,"John","Rino");


/* This particular line has to write sthg in the file */
/* of course i have "fopened" the file using "r" read and it's not possible to write
in the file, if I i use "w" it destroys everything in the id.dat file */
/* What shall i do in order to write a new element at the end of he file using fprintf? */

}         /* main */

Thanks in advance








}

Well hi again!

I found it!

I just have to place "a+" or "a+b" and not "r" in order to write at the end of the file

> while(!feof(fp))
while ( fscanf(fp,"%d %s %s",&id,fname,lname) == 3 )
achieves two things
1 - it removes duplicated lines of code, so you no longer have to worry about keeping them in step.
2 - it actually checks for success rather than blindly marching on. If the %d found a non-integer, your code would just lock up in an infinite loop.

Originally Posted by g_p

Well hi again!

I found it!

I just have to place "a+" or "a+b" and not "r" in order to write at the end of the file

When switching from reading to writing or vise versa, you need to rewind() the file (or fseek() in it). I'm not sure if this applies to append mode or not, but just to be safe, you should rewind() the file anyway.

Well thanks,
now i have a different problem.

I have defined a function out of main and it tries to print some results in a specified file

it is like :

Code:

void Print_in_File(FILE *source_file,FILE *target file) {


/* I use fscanf in order to read the source_file -> this is fine :) */
/* Then i use fprintf in order to write to the destination file using fprintf(target_file,"...","a")*/
/* the problem is that the target_file is empty after the fprintf cause main cannot see the changes!!!*/
/* What shall i do in order for the file to be modified out of main??*/

}

Thanks, in advance!

You can pass file pointers just like you have done. How do you think fprintf() works? It takes a FILE* as a parameter.

I think this is what you're doing. You're writing data to target_file, and then reading that data in main(). Well, you should probably fflush() the file and then rewind() it if this is what you are doing. If it isn't, be more specific.

Well i if i try to return a FILE * pointer for the txt file, will i have the desired results?

Well i have never used fflush and rewind and today i have to submit a project so it would be difficult for me to use these functions cause i'm not confident with them, if i had time i would use them

Well i if i try to return a FILE * pointer for the txt file, will i have the desired results?

Actually i did that, but it didn't work!

It won't work. You need to flush the file.

It's not hard, seriously. You use rewind() to start from the beginning of the file, and call fflush() after you write anything to the file. Both of these functions take one parameter: the FILE* pointer to operate on.

Code:

#include <stdio.h>

void print_names(FILE *fp) {
    char name[BUFSIZ];
    int x = 0;

    while(fgets(name, sizeof(name), fp)) {
        printf("&#37;3i: %s", ++x, name);
    }
}

int main() {
    FILE *fp = fopen("names.txt", "a+");
    char name[BUFSIZ];

    puts("Previous names:");
    print_names(fp);

    printf("\nEnter your name: ");
    fgets(name, sizeof(name), stdin);
    rewind(fp);
    fputs(name, fp);
    fflush(fp);
    rewind(fp);

    puts("Updated list of names:");
    print_names(fp);

    fclose(fp);

    return 0;
}

If you really don't feel like doing this, open the file for writing, write your data, close the file, then open the file for reading.