file pointers + recursion = sore head

heres my little problem, i need to save some information to a file that is stored in a binary tree, getting the information is not a problem, <gotta love recursion aint you>, now to the problem, the code for opening the file is within the function and obviously it keeps opening the file with every item from the binary tree, so whats the problem i hear you ask, well i've already got stuff in the file that i've loading into the program and when i save that stuff and some new stuff i want to be able to erase the contents and start from fresh, but with every pass with recursion the new info gets erased also, i cant put the file open routine outside of the function cause the function will still call it every time :confused:

heres the code

void saveContents(PTRnode* &root, char pathname[60])
{
FILE *fp; //file pointer

int temp;
if(root==NULL)
{
return;
}
else
{
fp = fopen(pathname, "w");
fprintf(fp,"%s\n%s\n%d\n",root->data.artist, root->data.title, root->data.numberTracks);
for(temp=1;temp<=root->data.numberTracks;temp++)
{
fprintf(fp,"%s\n",&root->data.SongList[temp]);
}
fclose(fp);
saveContents(root->left, pathname);
saveContents(root->right, pathname);
}


}


i hope that made sense all that typing, hope someone can help me

thanx in advance korbitz

Simple, open the file first, and instead of passing 'path name', pass it the file pointer. Additionally, why are you using '&root' here? Anyway...

void saveContents(PTRnode* root, FILE *fp )

Quzah.

hey that worked thanx mate

on the &root thingy, i'm positive i tried the other way and it never worked properly so i use * &root and it works fine

relatively inexperienced at c, but slowly getting there

Assuming the following:

typedef struct node {
...node stuff...
} NODE;

Then you can do the following:

NODE *nptr; //pointer to a node

Assuming the following function:

void function( NODE *npt, FILE *fp )
{ ...stuff... }

Then a function call:

function( nptr, myFilePtr );


Quzah.

i think that looks fimiliar to what i had before, but for the life of me i could not get the address of root and assign a NULL value to it, thats why i changed it, inexperience probably