Read/Write structure to a file in C

Prerequisite: Structure in C

For writing in file, it is easy to write string or int to file using fprintf and putc, but you might have faced difficulty when writing contents of struct. fwrite and fread make task easier when you want to write and read blocks of data.

fwrite : Following is the declaration of fwrite function

size_t fwrite(const void *ptr, size_t size, size_t nmemb, FILE *stream)
ptr - This is pointer to array of elements to be written
size -  This is the size in bytes of each element to be written
nmemb - This is the number of elements, each one with a size of size bytes
stream - This is the pointer to a FILE object that specifies an output stream

// C program for writing  
// struct to file 
#include <stdio.h> 
#include <stdlib.h> 
#include <string.h> 
  
// a struct to read and write 
struct person  
{ 
    int id; 
    char fname[20]; 
    char lname[20]; 
}; 
  
int main () 
{ 
    FILE *outfile; 
      
    // open file for writing 
    outfile = fopen ("person.dat", "w"); 
    if (outfile == NULL) 
    { 
        fprintf(stderr, "\nError opend file\n"); 
        exit (1); 
    } 
  
    struct person input1 = {1, "rohan", "sharma"}; 
    struct person input2 = {2, "mahendra", "dhoni"}; 
      
    // write struct to file 
    fwrite (&input1, sizeof(struct person), 1, outfile); 
    fwrite (&input2, sizeof(struct person), 1, outfile); 
      
    if(fwrite != 0)  
        printf("contents to file written successfully !\n"); 
    else 
        printf("error writing file !\n"); 
  
    // close file 
    fclose (outfile); 
  
    return 0; 
} 

Output:

gcc demowrite.c
./a.out
contents to file written successfully!

fread : Following is the declaration of fread function

size_t fread(void *ptr, size_t size, size_t nmemb, FILE *stream)
ptr - This is the pointer to a block of memory with a minimum size of size*nmemb bytes.
size - This is the size in bytes of each element to be read.
nmemb - This is the number of elements, each one with a size of size bytes.
stream - This is the pointer to a FILE object that specifies an input stream.

// C program for reading  
// struct from a file 
#include <stdio.h> 
#include <stdlib.h> 
  
// struct person with 3 fields 
struct person  
{ 
    int id; 
    char fname[20]; 
    char lname[20]; 
}; 
  
// Driver program 
int main () 
{ 
    FILE *infile; 
    struct person input; 
      
    // Open person.dat for reading 
    infile = fopen ("person.dat", "r"); 
    if (infile == NULL) 
    { 
        fprintf(stderr, "\nError opening file\n"); 
        exit (1); 
    } 
      
    // read file contents till end of file 
    while(fread(&input, sizeof(struct person), 1, infile)) 
        printf ("id = %d name = %s %s\n", input.id, 
        input.fname, input.lname); 
  
    // close file 
    fclose (infile); 
  
    return 0; 
} 

Output:

gcc demoread.c
./a.out
id = 1   name = rohan sharma
id = 2   name = mahendra dhoni

This article is contributed by Mandeep Singh. If you like GeeksforGeeks and would like to contribute, you can also write an article using contribute.geeksforgeeks.org or mail your article to contribute@geeksforgeeks.org. See your article appearing on the GeeksforGeeks main page and help other Geeks.

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