Saving files

Hi!

I have a function which saves properties of the program into the setup.cfg file. There are two properties to be saved. My problem is that when I want to save just one propertie I have to read the whole setup.cfg file and save the previous properties into the temporary variable. Is there any way to avoid this? If not, is there any other solution?

Here's my code:

Code:

---

typedef struct
{
  char LanguageFile[30];
  BOOL StatusLine;
} Properties;

# define SETUP_FILE "./DATA/setup.cfg"

int main ()
{
  FILE *fin = NULL;
  Properties File;
  char Temp[30];

  if ((fin = fopen (SETUP_FILE, "rb")) != NULL)
  {
      fread (&File, sizeof (Properties), 1, fin);
      strncpy (Temp, File.LanguageFile, strlen (File.LanguageFile) + 1);
      strncpy (File.LanguageFile, Temp, strlen (Temp) + 1);
  }
  fclose (fin);
  if ((fin = fopen (SETUP_FILE, "wb")) != NULL)
  {       
      strncpy (File.LanguageFile, Temp, strlen (Temp) + 1);       
      File.StatusLine = TRUE;
      fwrite (&File, sizeof (Properties), 1, fin);
  }
  fclose (fin);
}

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Instead of using the "wb" file open mode, which erases the file in question, use "ab", which preserves the previous contents and places the file pointer at the end of the file for writing.

-Prelude

But this will always add the saved propertie into a file. At the end I'll have a 1 KB of saved properties which is not good.

I see, so you want to have a set number of properties in the .cfg file and update the file when one property changes?

If the size of each property doesn't change then you could easily index the file with a table of offsets placed at the beginning of the file. When you want to update a property, read the table and go to the appropriate offset to make the change.

If the file isn't huge and the size of properties will change, your approach is probably the best for small files. Anything more will overcomplicate things if the speed gain isn't worth the extra code. This is usually true for the smaller files.

-Prelude

Quote:

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I see, so you want to have a set number of properties in the .cfg file and update the file when one property changes?

---

Yes.

Quote:

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If the size of each property doesn't change then you could easily index the file with a table of offsets placed at the beginning of the file. When you want to update a property, read the table and go to the appropriate offset to make the change.

---

How to index the file?

Quote:

---

If the file isn't huge and the size of properties will change, your approach is probably the best for small files. Anything more will overcomplicate things if the speed gain isn't worth the extra code. This is usually true for the smaller files.

---

The file size is very small, it' size will be around 0.5 KB.

>The file size is very small, it' size will be around 0.5 KB.
There's little need for efficiency then.

>How to index the file?
Each property has a size, create the indexes by breaking the file up into blocks of those sizes and divide the total size of the file by the size of one block. You calculate the offsets by starting at 0 and moving forward with fseek by the size of a block. So if each property has a size of 12 bytes the offset table would be {0, 12, 24, etc...}. To go to a property, just select a key which matches the property with its offset and fseek to that offset.

-Prelude

I was trying with the fseek function but I just can't get it working. Can you show me an example?