read a text file with lines of variable length

I'm trying to read a text file with lines of variable length. Is there a way to do that?

<<split from this thread, don't bump old threads>>

Quote:

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Originally Posted by raymond

I'm trying to read a text file with lines of variable length. Is there a way to do that?

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Do you know a maximum line length? If not, are you familiar with dynamic allocation?

Thanks for the immediate reply.

I'm a beginner and looking at this line of code:
fgets(buf, sizeof(buf), stdin);

But my input is of variable-length. Can somebody please point me to the correct direction?

Again, do you know a maximum line length, or are you familiar with dynamic allocation?

No, I don't know the maximum line length so the answer must be "dynamic allocation." I'll look into that direction.

If anybody can give some more clues, I'd appreciate it.

You have a few options:

1 - Use a big buffer, bigger than you think your longest line will be.
2 - Use a small buffer, and continue reading in a loop until your input contains a newline.

You can dynamically allocate space if you need to with things like malloc. You can also squish strings together with functions like strcat.


Quzah.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by quzah

You can also squish strings together with functions like strcat.

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That's amazing. That's exactly how my documentation words the description of strcat() too ;)

And just who do you think wrote all those man pages anyway? Duh! :rolleyes:


Quzah.