Explain fscanf ( ) statements with an example. 10m Dec 2009

By | August 6, 2016

Explain fprintf ( ) and fscanf ( )statements with an example of each. 10m Dec 2009

fscanf()

Declaration

int fscanf ( FILE * stream, const char * format, … );

Description

Read formatted data from stream

Reads data from the stream and stores them according to the parameter format into the locations pointed by the additional arguments.

The additional arguments should point to already allocated objects of the type specified by their corresponding format specifier within the format string.

Stream

Pointer to a FILE object that identifies the input stream to read data from.

Format

C string that contains a sequence of characters that control how characters extracted from the stream are treated:

  • Whitespace character: the function will read and ignore any whitespace characters encountered before the next non-whitespace character (whitespace characters include spaces, newline and tab characters — see isspace). A single whitespace in the format string validates any quantity of whitespace characters extracted from the stream (including none).
  • Non-whitespace character, except format specifier (%): Any character that is not either a whitespace character (blank, newline or tab) or part of a format specifier (which begin with a %character) causes the function to read the next character from the stream, compare it to this non-whitespace character and if it matches, it is discarded and the function continues with the next character of format. If the character does not match, the function fails, returning and leaving subsequent characters of the stream unread.
  • Format specifiers: A sequence formed by an initial percentage sign (%) indicates a format specifier, which is used to specify the type and format of the data to be retrieved from the stream and stored into the locations pointed by the additional arguments.

format specifier for fscanf follows this prototype:

%[*][width][length]specifier

Where the specifier character at the end is the most significant component, since it defines which characters are extracted, their interpretation and the type of its corresponding argument:

specifier

Description

Characters extracted

iu Integer Any number of digits, optionally proceeded by a sign (+ or -).Decimal digits assumed by default (0-9), but a 0 prefix introduces octal digits (0-7), and 0x hexadecimal digits (0-f).
D Decimal integer Any number of decimal digits (0-9), optionally proceeded by a sign (+ or -).
O Octal integer Any number of octal digits (0-7), optionally proceeded by a sign (+ or -).
X Hexadecimal integer Any number of hexadecimal digits (0-9a-fA-F), optionally preceded by 0x or 0X, and all optionally preceded by a sign (+ or -).
feg Floating point number A series of decimal digits, optionally containing a decimal point, optionally preceeded by a sign (+ or -) and optionally followed by the e or E character and a decimal integer (or some of the other sequences supported by strtod).
Implementations complying with C99 also support hexadecimal floating-point format when preceded by 0x or 0X.
A
C Character The next character. If a width other than 1 is specified, the function reads exactlywidth characters and stores them in the successive locations of the array passed as argument. No null character is appended at the end.
s String of characters Any number of non-whitespace characters, stopping at the first whitescape character found. A terminating null character is automatically added at the end of the stored sequence.
P Pointer address A sequence of characters representing a pointer. The particular format used depends on the system and library implementation, but it is the same as the one used to format %p in fprint.
[characters] Scanset Any number of the characters specified between the brackets.
A dash (-) that is not the first character may produce non-portable behavior in some library implementations.
[^characters] Negated scanset Any number of characters none of them specified as characters between the brackets.
N Count No input is consumed.
The number of characters read so far from stream is stored in the pointed location.
% % % followed by another % matches a single %.

Except for n, at least one character shall be consumed by any specifier. Otherwise the match fails, and the scan ends there.

The format specifier can also contain sub-specifiers: asterisk (*), width and length (in that order), which are optional and follow these specifications:

sub-specifier

description

* An optional starting asterisk indicates that the data is to be read from the stream but ignored (i.e. it is not stored in the location pointed by an argument).
width Specifies the maximum number of characters to be read in the current reading operation (optional).
length One of hhhllljztL (optional).
This alters the expected type of the storage pointed by the corresponding argument (see below).

This is a chart showing the types expected for the corresponding arguments where input is stored (both with and without a length sub-specifier):

Note: Yellow rows indicate specifiers and sub-specifiers introduced by C99.

… (addittional arguments)

Depending on the format string, the function may expect a sequence of additional arguments, each containing a pointer to allocated storage where the interpretation of the extracted characters is stored with the appropriate type.
There should be at least as many of these arguments as the number of values stored by the format specifiers. Additional arguments are ignored by the function.
These arguments are expected to be pointers: to store the result of a fscanf operation on a regular variable, its name should be preceded by the reference operator (&).

RETURN VALUE

On success, the function returns the number of items of the argument list successfully filled. This count can match the expected number of items or be less (even zero) due to a matching failure, a reading error, or the reach of theend-of-file.

If a reading error happens or the end-of-file is reached while reading, the proper indicator is set (feof or ferror). And, if either happens before any data could be successfully read, EOF is returned.

If an encoding error happens interpreting wide characters, the function sets  errno to EILSEQ.

 

(b)Write a program in ‘C’: 10

(i) To reverse a string

Solved program can be found on this link http://cssimplified.com/c-programming/a-c-program-to-reverse-the-given-string-using-recursion

 

(ii) To copy str1 to str2 without the use of strcpy function.

Solved program can be found on this link http://cssimplified.com/c-programming/write-a-program-that-does-not-use-the-inbuilt-string-functions-to-perform-the-following-10m-jun2006