C Program to read from another file and print to screen

The Crab

I am writing a C program to ask a user for the file they want to see the text from. Then the program reads the file and prints to the screen.

I've written this but whilst it compiles the program will only ask for the file, then when this is input it will do nothing, the file I'm trying to open exists (I'm trying it with a file called TextFile.txt which I've saved in the same area as this program). Any advice would be gratefully received.

#include<stdio.h> 
int main()
{
	FILE *fopen(), *fp, *fprint;
	int letter;
	char fname[80];
	printf("Please enter the name of the file you wish to open: ");
	gets(fname);
	fp=fopen (fname, "r");
	letter = getchar();
		while (letter != EOF)
		{
		putchar(letter);
		letter=getchar();
		}
return 0;
}

Webmonkey

You should use char for the letter not int. A char is byte, a integer is 4 bytes normally.

Without looking into it too far I think this may be a problem.

jayo99

why have you got this line -

FILE *fopen(), *fp, *fprint; ?


remove *fopen(), as fopen() is a method name

FILE *fp, *fprint;

The Crab

Thanks both. I did both of those things but I still have the same problem.

I'm completely new to this so I'm a bit confused, my lecturer said "letter" had to be an int because the EOF thing is -1 so a char won't work with it?

Annoying thing is I have FOUR programs like this which I need to submit, but the four won't work cos I'm doing something wrong and can't work out what lol.

Webmonkey

Sorry yes you are correct. So what happens. Have you set break points? Step throguh the code and see what's happening.

Edit: Just noticed. Getchar is getting a character from STDIN (keyboard) and not the file.

Use

fgetc(fp);

Instead

The Crab

Webmonkey wrote: »

Sorry yes you are correct. So what happens. Have you set break points? Step throguh the code and see what's happening.

Edit: Just noticed. Getchar is getting a character from STDIN (keyboard) and not the file.

Use

fgetc(fp);

Instead

Perfect, thanks! I'd have been working at that for hours and wouldn't have known.

FruitLover

FYI, a char should work for 'letter' as long as it's signed. Whether a char is signed by default or not is dependent on implementation, but usually it's signed (force by declaring 'signed char' just in case).

Webmonkey

FruitLover wrote: »

FYI, a char should work for 'letter' as long as it's signed. Whether a char is signed by default or not is dependent on implementation, but usually it's signed (force by declaring 'signed char' just in case).

255 would be the -1 then in this case but what if you want the character 255 "ÿ". Unlikely I know