How to find an end of file
junky_fellow
a file ?
How does feof() detects that end of file is reached ?
Does this require support from OS ?
Thanx in advance for any help ...
Charlie Gordon
news:8c7d4a6e.0412...@posting.google.com...
> What is the proper way of finding an end of file condition while reading
> a file ?
>
> How does feof() detects that end of file is reached ?
feof() does not detect that end of file is reached, it reports that end of file
was reached during a previous read operation.
> Does this require support from OS ?
if files are implemented with the OS, feof() will rely on the OS reporting such
a condition for read operations.
if files are implemented within the C library, the OS is not an issue.
It is important to notice that feof() is counterintuitive:
- Whether a read operation that reaches the end of a file set the condition is
not specified : fgets() reading the last line will probably not set it, while
fscanf() eating trailing white space might.
- If the file is being written by another function (or process where that makes
sense), feof() may return non 0 even after more data becomes available for
reading (clearerr() or fseek() may be needed before reading).
As a rule of thumb, only use feof() to disambiguate end of file from read error
after a read operation fails.
Idioms such as while (!feof(f)) { ... } and do { ... } while (!feof(f)); are
bogus and must be avoided.
--
Chqrlie.
PS: I know about 7.19.6.2 example 3 verse 19. This code snipplet is bogus and
useless. AAMOF most do/while loops are bogus anyway.
Johnathan Doe
> What is the proper way of finding an end of file condition while reading
> a file ?
>
> How does feof() detects that end of file is reached ?
> Does this require support from OS ?
You can do it yourself without feof(), by doing
struct stat statstruct;
stat("filename", &statstruct);
statstruct.st_size is the number of bytes in the file.
> Thanx in advance for any help ...
Using feof() is easier though.
FILE *fp = fopen(...);
while (!feof(fp)) {
... read stuff
}
Johnathan Doe
>
> FILE *fp = fopen(...);
>
> while (!feof(fp)) {
> ... read stuff
> }
And of course as the previous poster said, you may have a short count or
even an error, so take that into account.
while (!feof(fp)) {
/* Short count ? */
n = fread(buffer, ..., fp);
if (n != whatever) {
if (ferror())
... some kind of error
if (feof())
... end of file
}
}
Joona I Palaste
> junky_fellow wrote:
>> What is the proper way of finding an end of file condition while reading
>> a file ?
>>
>> How does feof() detects that end of file is reached ?
>> Does this require support from OS ?
> You can do it yourself without feof(), by doing
> struct stat statstruct;
> stat("filename", &statstruct);
> statstruct.st_size is the number of bytes in the file.
No you can't. There is no struct stat or stat() in the C language.
--
/-- Joona Palaste (pal...@cc.helsinki.fi) ------------- Finland --------\
\-------------------------------------------------------- rules! --------/
"You have moved your mouse, for these changes to take effect you must shut down
and restart your computer. Do you want to restart your computer now?"
- Karri Kalpio
Charlie Gordon
wrote in message
news:41b6c124$0$25761$5a62...@per-qv1-newsreader-01.iinet.net.au...
> > Using feof() is easier though.
> >
> > FILE *fp = fopen(...);
> >
> > while (!feof(fp)) {
> > ... read stuff
> > }
>
> And of course as the previous poster said, you may have a short count or
> even an error, so take that into account.
The previous poster said to avoid this stupid bogus idiom !
> while (!feof(fp)) {
>
> /* Short count ? */
> n = fread(buffer, ..., fp);
>
> if (n != whatever) {
> if (ferror())
> ... some kind of error
> if (feof())
> ... end of file
> }
> }
Instead do this :
for (;;) {
n = fread(buffer, sizeof(type), count, fp);
if (n != count) {
... handle partial read.
if (ferror(f)) {
... handle error and break or return
break;
}
if (feof(f)) {
.. handle end of file and break or return
break;
}
} else {
... handle normal read
}
}
--
Chqrlie.
Johnathan Doe
> No you can't. There is no struct stat or stat() in the C language.
Assuming you're working on 99% of OSes out there, yes you can.
Joona I Palaste
>> No you can't. There is no struct stat or stat() in the C language.
> Assuming you're working on 99% of OSes out there, yes you can.
Here we discuss 100% of the OSes out there.
--
/-- Joona Palaste (pal...@cc.helsinki.fi) ------------- Finland --------\
\-------------------------------------------------------- rules! --------/
"A computer program does what you tell it to do, not what you want it to do."
- Anon
CBFalconer
Read the welcome message. This group deals with the language as
defined by the ISO standards, not some imaginary uncontrolled
offshoot. Reference to non-standard features is off-topic. Also
use of feof for any purpose other than to disambiguae a read error
is almost always an error. You would know all this is you had
bothered to read this group for a period before breaking in with
misinformation.
--
Chuck F (cbfal...@yahoo.com) (cbfal...@worldnet.att.net)
Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems.
<http://cbfalconer.home.att.net> USE worldnet address!
Mark McIntyre
Please read the C Standard and point out where stat() is defined.
What 99% of OSen (sure about that number? AmigaOS, Atari TOS, CPM, VMS4.x,
VM/CMS, MacOS 8.1, DOS3.11, Embedded XP ? I have no clue, I bet you don't
either) support is neither here nor there.
--
Mark McIntyre
CLC FAQ <http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/top.html>
CLC readme: <http://www.ungerhu.com/jxh/clc.welcome.txt>
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Kevin D. Quitt
<MarcSmit...@mail.codecomments.com> wrote:
>
>cuz he is using a file pointer can he seek using fseek to the end of the
>file, and use ftell to tell him the filesize.
Oh, bad news.
7.19.9.4 The ftell function
...For a text stream, its file position indicator contains unspecified
information, usable by the fseek function for returning the file position
indicator for the stream to its position at the time of the ftell call;
the difference between two such return values is not necessarily a
meaningful measure of the number of characters written or read.
Oh, and what if the stream is a pipe?
Thank you for playing. For an additional two-fifty, we can send you the
consolation prize.
--
#include <standard.disclaimer>
_
Kevin D Quitt USA 91387-4454 96.37% of all statistics are made up
Per the FCA, this address may not be added to any commercial mail list
Chris Torek
junky_fellow <junky_...@yahoo.co.in> wrote:
>What is the proper way of finding an end of file condition while reading
>a file ?
Try to read the file, and if it fails, see if the reason it failed
was "end of file".
>How does feof() detects that end of file is reached ?
It does not. It answers a question about "why that earlier failure?"
for a previous read that you already know failed. The two possible
reasons allowed, in Standard C (and in the Unix-like systems on
which C was developed), are "the attempt to read failed because
there was nothing more to read, i.e., a perfectly ordinary end-of-file
occurred" and "the attempt to read failed because of some sort of
underlying failure, such as hitting a bad spot on the disk, or the
hardware is on fire." The "no more data" case causes feof(fp) to
become nonzero, while the "hardware failure/disk drive has melted"
case causes ferror(fp) to become true.
>Does this require support from OS ?
It requires only the ability to report failures when reading files,
and to distinguish between "no more data" and "hardware error".
Note that C streams can be connected to interactive devices (like
human beings typing at keyboards, or Internet connections, on
systems that support such things), and it is not possible to predict
in advance just when a human being or Internet connection will
reach "end of input". But there is no need for prescience: if you
want more input, just ask for it, and when you no longer get it,
only *then* do you need to find out why. Sure, it might be nice
sometimes to predict in advance how much input you will get -- but
in the worst case, you can just copy everything to a temporary
file, and then use the copy. This even works on human beings and
Internet connections.
--
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Wind River Systems
Salt Lake City, UT, USA (40°39.22'N, 111°50.29'W) +1 801 277 2603
email: forget about it http://web.torek.net/torek/index.html
Reading email is like searching for food in the garbage, thanks to spammers.
MarcSmith
i believe that even using pipes at least in dos it does give filesize of
a given file since it is a given file he is talking about.
program <infile.dat // for example, does give filesize
but of course, stdin by itself does not.
--
MarcSmith
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Keith Thompson
> i believe that even using pipes at least in dos it does give filesize of
> a given file since it is a given file he is talking about.
>
> program <infile.dat // for example, does give filesize
>
> but of course, stdin by itself does not.
<OT>
That's not a pipe.
</OT>
--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) ks...@mib.org <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
San Diego Supercomputer Center <*> <http://users.sdsc.edu/~kst>
We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this.
junky_...@yahoo.co.in
two reasons: 1) Some Error Condition 2) end-of-file occurred.
Don't you feel that if read fails( the number of bytes read are less
than requested), we should first check for error.
If there's no error, that means the end-of-file has reached. I mean
to say there is no need for feof().
Chris Torek
The Unix-specific details are off topic (though I will note that
if you request, e.g., 100 bytes and get 12, that is not a "failure"
on a POSIX system) -- but the way the underlying OS-level read
fails feeds in turn into the feof() and ferror() functions in C.
That is, feof(fp) tells you "an earlier OS-level read failed to
get anything due to reaching end of file", while ferror(fp) tells
you "an earlier OS-level read failed to get anything due to
I/O-error."
Because the OS-level request has already failed, the standard I/O
subsystem in the C library must *record* the reason somewhere, if
it is to let you ask about it after-the-fact like this. The place(s)
it records the reason(s) are secret (however poorly-kept that secret
is -- if you examine the system, you can find it easily), but feof()
and ferror() interrogate this recorded information.
MarcSmith
1. maybe the person can post with compiler and environment like wht os
he/she is using. or specify what he/she is doing more specifically.
2. when someone refers to 90% of the oses out there, i make a bet that
i lost track of what percentage Microsoft owns in market share relative
to operating systems, but i make a bet it is more close to 80%. the
other notion is what is the remaining percentage, that could be linux
or unix installations or PowerPc, and probably 0.5% market share to the
remaining oses. are you still using them? as a software developer, i
program for the masses, which basically falls in dos / windows / linux
/ unix installations, and that it is about it. most pc's like the apple
can run dos or windows programs even the amiga. i seem to agree with the
other guy about the post. the other percentange isn't worth my time or
money. stat and fstat are supported by a lot of compilers for those
platforms. this website is trying the make everybody happy on all
systems no matters what c or c++ compiler you are using just so it is
ansi or iso based. i think that you have a tough job ahead of you.
trying to make everybody happy. that's all...enough said.
CBFalconer
>
> 1. maybe the person can post with compiler and environment like wht os
> he/she is using. or specify what he/she is doing more specifically.
If anyone needs to specify that he or she is off-topic. c.l.c
deals with the _portable_ C language only.