problem with fread into array

I am trying to read a binary file:

Code:

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FILE *fl = fopen("dta.bin", "rb");
       
        if ( (fopen("data.bin", "rb" )) == NULL)
                {
              printf("input file not found");
              getchar();
              exit(1);
             
                }
       
        fseek(fl, 0, SEEK_END);
     
        long len = ftell(fl);//get length of file
        char *ret = (char*)  malloc(len);
     
       
        if(ret == NULL)
                {
                        printf("\nInsufficient memory to read file\n");
                        getchar();
                }
               
        fseek(fl, 0, SEEK_SET);
                //Read data from file into array
        fread(ret, 1, len, fl);

        fclose(fl);
   
               
        printf  ("size of array: %i", sizeof(ret));
        printf  ("\nlength of file: %i", len);
        getchar();

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I can't see what is wrong with the code but the char array "ret" is not getting the values from my input file.
The output says:
"size of array:4
length of file: 102727488"
when they should be the same length.

"ret" is a pointer that is 4 bytes long. Therefore, sizeof(ret) will return 4.

ok... so how do I get my char array to be same size as len? and then populate with the contents of my input file?

The only way to know the length of something you allocated with malloc is to store that value in a variable.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by doia

ok... so how do I get my char array to be same size as len?

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Your array's length IS the same as the value in len (assuming the malloc call was successful).

Be aware that if you are attempting to use any of the basic string manipulation functions declared in the string.h header on this data you're reading then you'll want to allocate an additional byte and make sure you properly null-terminate the data.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by doia

and then populate with the contents of my input file?

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What you've got should be good as far as reading the data into the array although if you are truly having difficulties then fseek and fread both return values to indicate success or failure, you can try seeing if they return any weird error code.

[edit]Don't typecast the malloc call.[/edit]