Thread: fread Problem - Random Characters Printing

(SOLVED!)

Hey there. I've been having this issue for awhile, and its not too bad. Its just, whenever I use fread to read from a text file to print to the screen, it also prints random characters that aren't suppose to be there. I've tried looking on Google but couldn't find an answer. Well, I did find answers but none of them worked for me.

Code:

FILE *title;
char titlestr[713];

title = fopen(".//text//title.txt", "r");
fread(titlestr, sizeof(titlestr), 1, title);
printf("%s", titlestr);

That's my current code; why are random characters being printed?

fread isn't typically your best choice for text mode. You probably want fgets or maybe fscanf. That isn't to say you can't use it, but you should be checking its return value, and you should be making sure that is a nul terminated bunch of text if you plan on using it as a string. Typically a .txt file isn't going to include a nul terminator.


Quzah.

Originally Posted by Coool Steve

Hey there. I've been having this issue for awhile, and its not too bad. Its just, whenever I use fread to read from a text file to print to the screen, it also prints random characters that aren't suppose to be there. I've tried looking on Google but couldn't find an answer. Well, I did find answers but none of them worked for me.

Code:

FILE *title;
char titlestr[713];

title = fopen(".//text//title.txt", "r");
fread(titlestr, sizeof(titlestr), 1, title);
printf("%s", titlestr);

Fist off... sizeof(titlestr) is extremely unreliable. You should define a constant and use that instead...

Code:

#define TSTRLEN 713

fread(titlestr, TSTRLEN,1, title);

But this only works if titlestr is *always exactly* 713 characters long... In any other case you will either get only part of the string or you'll end up reading past the end of the string into whatever else is in the file.

That's my current code; why are random characters being printed?

Because the string is not null terminated... Of that 713 characters you need to know how many are actually used... before you can print it.

Here's a trick you can use...

Code:

#define TSTRLEN 713

FILE *title;
char titlestr[TSTRLEN];

title = fopen(".//text//title.txt", "r");
memset(title,0,TSTRLEN);
fread(titlestr,1, TSTRLEN, title);
printf("%s", titlestr);

Although I think you will find fgets() would be a far better way to read that string from disk.

Tried using the example you gave me, unfortunately, whenever I use it it just prints a single "-", nothing more. I'll try fgets instead.

Thanks to all of you for your assistance! fgets has proven to be a better choice. I was really surprised at how fast my question was answered!

(Especially you, CommonTater!)

Originally Posted by CommonTater

No worries... just happened to be in the neighborhood.

He's like a hobo, and we're all out of boxcars.


Quzah.