Help creating multiple text files

Thanks adak, but it gives the same result as my effort previously. Is very frustrating. Yours does look nicer though!

I will muck around with your version now. maybe I missed something.

OK, one more time! :)

Code:

---

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

int main()  {
  char ch;
  char file[12] = {"TomB"};
  char newfile[12] = {"\0"};
  char ext[5] = {".txt"};
  int i = 0, length, j;
  FILE  *nf;
 
  printf("\n\n"); 
  while(ch = file[i]) {
      newfile[0] = ch;
      strcat(newfile, ext);
      nf = fopen(newfile, "w");

      printf("\n%s ", newfile);
      if (nf == NULL) {
        fprintf(stderr, "Can't open created file %s!\n", newfile);
        exit(1);
      }
      length = strlen(newfile);
      for(j = 0; j < length; j++)
        newfile[j] = '\0';
      ++i;

  }
  j = getchar();
  return 0;
}

---

Output:

T.txt
o.txt
m.txt
B.txt

using strcat when you need to update only 1 char... too complicated

Code:

---

char mask[] = "TomB";
char name[] = "1.txt";
size_t len = strlen(mask);
size_t i;
for(i = 0; i< len; i++)
{
  FILE* fp;
  name[0] = mask[i]; /* see - you just replace 1 char in the name */
  fp = fopen (name, "w");
  if(fp)
  {
      printf("File %s opened\n", name);
      fclose(fp);
  }
}

---

something like that should work I suppose

Why not put the filename generating code into its own function, to simplify things?

Code:

---

char* generate_filename( const char* template_name, int index, const char* extension, char* buffer, int maxlen )
{
        char digits[ 32 ];
        sprintf( digits, "%d", index );
        if( ( int )( strlen( template_name ) + strlen( digits ) + strlen( extension ) + 1 ) > maxlen )
                return NULL;
        strcpy( buffer, template_name );
        strcat( buffer, digits );
        strcat( buffer, extension );
        return buffer;
}

int main( void )
{
        char buffer[ 1024 ];
        for( int i = 12; i < 20; i++ )
        {
                if( generate_filename( "TomB", i, ".txt", buffer, 1024 ) )
                {
                        puts( buffer );
                }
                else
                {
                        puts( "buffer too small" );
                }
        }
}

---

Thank you all for your input, it has given me a lot to think about and to learn. I will try to understand fully what you have all shown.

I will not look into how to consolidate all this and to learn how to actually manipulate the files now.

Thanks again!

:)