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The
C programming language ''The C Programming Language'' (sometimes termed ''K&R'', after its authors' initials) is a computer programming book written by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie, the latter of whom originally designed and implemented the language, as well as ...
provides many
standard library In computer programming, a standard library is the library made available across implementations of a programming language. These libraries are conventionally described in programming language specifications; however, contents of a language's as ...
functions for
file File or filing may refer to: Mechanical tools and processes * File (tool), a tool used to ''remove'' fine amounts of material from a workpiece **Filing (metalworking), a material removal process in manufacturing ** Nail file, a tool used to gent ...
input and output In computing, input/output (I/O, or informally io or IO) is the communication between an information processing system, such as a computer, and the outside world, possibly a human or another information processing system. Inputs are the signals ...
. These functions make up the bulk of the C standard library header . The functionality descends from a "portable I/O package" written by
Mike Lesk Michael E. Lesk (born 1945) is an American computer scientist. Biography In the 1960s, Michael Lesk worked for the SMART Information Retrieval System project, wrote much of its retrieval code and did many of the retrieval experiments, as well as ...
at
Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mult ...
in the early 1970s, and officially became part of the
Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...
operating system in Version 7. The I/O functionality of C is fairly low-level by modern standards; C abstracts all file operations into operations on
stream A stream is a continuous body of water, body of surface water Current (stream), flowing within the stream bed, bed and bank (geography), banks of a channel (geography), channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a stream ...
s of
byte The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit ...
s, which may be "input streams" or "output streams". Unlike some earlier programming languages, C has no direct support for
random-access Random access (more precisely and more generally called direct access) is the ability to access an arbitrary element of a sequence in equal time or any datum from a population of addressable elements roughly as easily and efficiently as any othe ...
data files; to read from a record in the middle of a file, the programmer must create a stream, seek to the middle of the file, and then read bytes in sequence from the stream. The stream model of file I/O was popularized by Unix, which was developed concurrently with the C programming language itself. The vast majority of modern operating systems have inherited streams from Unix, and many languages in the
C programming language family C, or c, is the third letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''cee'' (pronounced ), plural ''cees''. History "C" ...
have inherited C's file I/O interface with few if any changes (for example,
PHP PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared toward web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by The PHP Group. ...
).


Overview

This library uses what are called streams to operate with physical devices such as keyboards, printers, terminals or with any other type of files supported by the system. Streams are an abstraction to interact with these in a uniform way. All streams have similar properties independent of the individual characteristics of the physical media they are associated with.


Functions

Most of the C file input/output functions are defined in (or in the
C++ C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...
header , which contains the standard C functionality but in the
namespace In computing, a namespace is a set of signs (''names'') that are used to identify and refer to objects of various kinds. A namespace ensures that all of a given set of objects have unique names so that they can be easily identified. Namespaces ...
).


Constants

Constants defined in the header include:


Variables

Variables defined in the header include:


Member types

Data types defined in the header include: * – also known as a file
handle A handle is a part of, or attachment to, an object that allows it to be grasped and manipulated by hand. The design of each type of handle involves substantial ergonomic issues, even where these are dealt with intuitively or by following tra ...
, this is an opaque type containing the information about a file or text stream needed to perform input or output operations on it, including: **platform-specific identifier of the associated I/O device, such as a
file descriptor In Unix and Unix-like computer operating systems, a file descriptor (FD, less frequently fildes) is a process-unique identifier (handle) for a file or other input/output resource, such as a pipe or network socket. File descriptors typically have ...
**the buffer **stream orientation indicator (unset, narrow, or wide) **stream buffering state indicator (unbuffered, line buffered, fully buffered) **I/O mode indicator (input stream, output stream, or update stream) **binary/text mode indicator **end-of-file indicator **error indicator **the current stream position and multibyte conversion state (an object of type mbstate_t) **reentrant lock (required as of
C11 C11, C.XI, C-11 or C.11 may refer to: Transport * C-11 Fleetster, a 1920s American light transport aircraft for use of the United States Assistant Secretary of War * Fokker C.XI, a 1935 Dutch reconnaissance seaplane * LET C-11, a license-build var ...
) * – a non-array type capable of uniquely identifying the position of every byte in a file and every conversion state that can occur in all supported multibyte character encodings * – an
unsigned integer In computer science, an integer is a datum of integral data type, a data type that represents some range of mathematical integers. Integral data types may be of different sizes and may or may not be allowed to contain negative values. Integers are ...
type which is the type of the result of the operator.


Extensions

The
POSIX The Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) is a family of standards specified by the IEEE Computer Society for maintaining compatibility between operating systems. POSIX defines both the system- and user-level application programming interf ...
standard defines several extensions to in its Base Definitions, among which are a function that allocates memory, the and functions that establish the link between objects and
file descriptor In Unix and Unix-like computer operating systems, a file descriptor (FD, less frequently fildes) is a process-unique identifier (handle) for a file or other input/output resource, such as a pipe or network socket. File descriptors typically have ...
s, and a group of functions for creating objects that refer to in-memory buffers.


Example

The following C program opens a binary file called ''myfile'', reads five bytes from it, and then closes the file. #include #include int main(void)


Alternatives to stdio

Several alternatives to have been developed. Among these is the C++ library, part of the ISO C++ standard. ISO C++ still requires the functionality. Other alternatives include the SFIO (A Safe/Fast I/O Library) library from
AT&T Bell Laboratories Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mult ...
. This library, introduced in 1991, aimed to avoid inconsistencies, unsafe practices and inefficiencies in the design of . Among its features is the possibility to insert
callback function In computer programming, a callback or callback function is any reference to executable code that is passed as an argument to another piece of code; that code is expected to ''call back'' (execute) the callback function as part of its job. Thi ...
s into a stream to customize the handling of data read from or written to the stream. It was released to the outside world in 1997, and the last release was 1 February 2005.


See also

*
printf format string The printf format string is a control parameter used by a class of functions in the input/output libraries of C and many other programming languages. The string is written in a simple template language: characters are usually copied literal ...
*
scanf format string A scanf format string (''scan f''ormatted) is a control parameter used in various functions to specify the layout of an input string. The functions can then divide the string and translate into values of appropriate data types. String scannin ...


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:C file input output C standard library Input/output Articles with example C code