I'm trying to write a program that reads a text file, using C with Visual Studio.
This is my current code (which doesn't work):
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main() {
FILE *filePTR;
char fileRow[100];
filePTR = fopen_s(&filePTR, "text.txt", "r");
// Opens the file
if(filePTR){
while(!feof(filePTR)) {
// Reads file row
fgets(fileRow, 100, filePTR);
// Displays file row
printf("%s \n", fileRow);
}
printf("\nEnd of file.");
}
else {
printf("ERROR! Impossible to read the file.");
}
// Closes the file
fclose(filePTR);
return 0;
}
I'm getting the following warning:
'filePTR' may be '0': this condition does not meet the function specification 'fclose'.
What am I doing wrong? I haven't been programming in C since a while ...
The problems begin long before the fclose
. This line is incorrect:
filePTR = fopen_s(&filePTR, "text.txt", "r");
It overwites the file pointer already assigned by passing a pointer as the function argument &filePTR.
The function returns an error status, not the file pointer. Please see the man page:
Return Value Zero if successful; an error code on failure.
Also, please see Why is while ( !feof (file) )
always wrong?
I suggest this:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main(void) { // correct definition
FILE *filePTR;
char fileRow[100];
if(fopen_s(&filePTR, "text.txt", "r") == 0) {
while(fgets(fileRow, sizeof fileRow, filePTR) != NULL) {
printf("%s", fileRow); // the string already contains a newline
}
fclose(filePTR); // only close if it was opened
printf("\nEnd of file.");
}
else {
printf("ERROR! Impossible to read the file.");
}
return 0;
}
Note that I moved the fclose
call up. You can't close a file that you did not open.