File
Management in C
FILE:
· We are using scanf and printf
functions to read and write data.
· These are called formatted
input/output functions, which always use the console (keyboard and monitor).
·
This works fine as long as the
data is small.
· Many real-life problems involve
large volumes of data and in such a situation, the console I/O has two
problems.
1.
It becomes cumbersome and time
consuming process to handle large volumes of data through the terminal.
2.
The entire data is lost when
the program is terminated or the computer turned-off.
· It is necessary to have a more
flexible approach where data can be stored on disks, and read whenever
necessary, without destroying the data. In such situations we use the concept
of files.
·
A file is a place on the disk
where a group of related data is stored.
·
Basic file operations such as:
o
creating a file
o
opening a file
o
reading data from a file
o
writing data to a file, and
o
closing a file
·
There are two distinct ways to
perform file operations in C.
o
The first one is known as the
low-level I/O and uses Unix system calls
o The second method is referred to as the high level I/O operation and
uses functions in C language's standard I/O library