How to read numbers out of a file in c

**muskateer1** · 04-05-2012

Hi,
I have a file that is a mixture of integers and words all strung together with spaces. It is a score for a bowling game it looks like "8 split 1 9 1 spare 7 2 10 strike 8 2 spare 6 split 2 7 3 spare 10 strike 10 strike 10 turkey 8 1" I am trying to figure out how to read the just the numbers out of the file and then rewrite them into another file.

I started with opening the original file and using sscanf to store the values in an array. Will this work with the way the file is formatted right now?

Thanks

**oogabooga** · 04-05-2012

You could read it "word by word" (whether that word is something like "split" or something like "8") using scanf with the %s format and then test the first character to see if it's between '0' and '9' inclusive. If it is, convert it to a number with atoi(), otherwise ignore it.

**itCbitC** · 04-05-2012

Better use strtok(), since the position of numbers and strings in the input file is arbitrary.
After reading each token from the file, verify with isdigit() if it is a number or not.
If the token is a number, then it gets written to another file or thrown away.

**oogabooga** · 04-05-2012

I don't think strtok is necessary. You can read the data straight from the file with fscanf using the %s format since it skips spaces automatically. Something like:

Code:

    char token[100];
    // ...
    while (fscanf(f, "%s", token) == 1) {
        if (isdigit(token[0])) {
            int n = atoi(token);
            printf("Number: %d\n", n);
        }else
            printf("Word: %s\n", token);
    }

Or if you had the data in a string, you could use sscanf the same way.

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