how to read a file as a string

[fred_benrold]

Hi , this is a question in c programming.

#include <stdio.h>
int main(void)
{
  FILE *Math_Expression;
  int counter = 0;
  int total = 0;
  float average;
  char n;
  Math_Expression = fopen("pf1.txt", "r");
  if (Math_Expression == NULL) {
    printf("Can't open numbers.txt\n");
    exit(1);
  }
  while (fscanf(Math_Expression, "%s", &n) == 1) {
    printf("%s", n);
    counter++;
  }


  fclose(Math_Expression);

  printf("There were %d characters in the file\n", counter);

  ;

  system("pause");
  return 0;
}

The code above , doesnt compile.
If i change the "%s " to "*c" it works; why is that ?
Also the real thing i need to do is to be able to read in values from the file as string , and then play around with the values depending on their type ( operator like *,/,+,- etc or if its a decimal ) . The problem i face is if i need to read in the values as "%s", i will be stuck fiddling with a variable with an "&" sign .
How do i read in the values of the files regardles of it being an operator or a number , and then check the string for its type ( *,+,-,3.2).
I ran into trouble trying to store the values of the array as a string, i got a an error when i used the strcpy function to store the values from the file into a string , strcpy ( char, &n) ..where &n is the current value read from the file . The error was " [Warning] passing arg 1 of `strcpy' makes pointer from integer without a cast ".
Also how do i get rid of the & ( pointer adress) ?
As i have to extract values from the file as a string and then operate on them , as in compare them or add them or subtract them etc .; how do i do do these without getting the same "makes pointer without a cast error ".

Please help me as soon as possible.

Any feedback will be appreciated xD .

[Salem]

First step, compile with warnings.

$ gcc -Wextra -Wall foo.c
foo.c: In function ‘main’:
foo.c:12:5: warning: implicit declaration of function ‘exit’ [-Wimplicit-function-declaration]
foo.c:12:5: warning: incompatible implicit declaration of built-in function ‘exit’ [enabled by default]
foo.c:15:5: warning: format ‘%s’ expects argument of type ‘char *’, but argument 2 has type ‘int’ [-Wformat]
foo.c:26:3: warning: implicit declaration of function ‘system’ [-Wimplicit-function-declaration]
foo.c:7:9: warning: unused variable ‘average’ [-Wunused-variable]
foo.c:6:7: warning: unused variable ‘total’ [-Wunused-variable]

> If i change the "%s " to "*c" it works; why is that ?
You've got the whole char-vs-string thing mixed up.

If you have
char n;
then use
fscanf(Math_Expression, "%c", &n);
printf("%c", n);

If you have
char n[100];
then use
fscanf(Math_Expression, "%s", n);
printf("%s", n);