Searching ........for help

Hi
I have a question on how i go about searching through a text file.

actually i know there are a lot of functions that can be used but i dont know how to go about it.

first off do i open a file and read it all into an array !
This doesnt seem good as how do i know the size of the array that must be created as the file will get bigger all the time.

What i do know is that each line in the file will not exceed 100 characters.
But there can be as many lines as need be.

I need some direction here, cause if i dont read the file into an array , how do i go about searching through the array or whatever??

also I do know that i will only have to compare the first 30 characters of each line with an input string that the uset types in.

Basically what i want to do is this:

Enter name: John
then the program goes and opens the text file (Here i get confused )
it searches through the first 30 characters of each line and compares it to the users input.
When it finds a match it outputs all 100 characters of that line.

If anyone can give me direction here , thanx
Also to keep it simple would be cool :cool: as im still learning this stuff.

thanx
:D

Read the file one line at a time, like you were shown here .
For each line read, use strncmp() to check the first 30 characters of the line against your user data (or you might want to use strstr() depending on your requirements).

If you find a match, simply output the full line.

Thanx
will try and get back