C Programming - Input / Output - Discussion

Discussion Forum : Input / Output - General Questions (Q.No. 7)
7.
On executing the below program what will be the contents of 'target.txt' file if the source file contains a line "To err is human"?
#include<stdio.h>

int main()
{
    int i, fss;
    char ch, source[20] = "source.txt", target[20]="target.txt", t;
    FILE *fs, *ft;
    fs = fopen(source, "r");
    ft = fopen(target, "w");
    while(1)
    {
        ch=getc(fs);
        if(ch==EOF)
            break;
        else
        {
            fseek(fs, 4L, SEEK_CUR);
            fputc(ch, ft);
        }
    }
    return 0;
}
r n
Trh
err
None of above
Answer: Option
Explanation:

The file source.txt is opened in read mode and target.txt is opened in write mode. The file source.txt contains "To err is human".

Inside the while loop,

ch=getc(fs); The first character('T') of the source.txt is stored in variable ch and it's checked for EOF.

if(ch==EOF) If EOF(End of file) is true, the loop breaks and program execution stops.

If not EOF encountered, fseek(fs, 4L, SEEK_CUR); the file pointer advances 4 character from the current position. Hence the file pointer is in 5th character of file source.txt.

fputc(ch, ft); It writes the character 'T' stored in variable ch to target.txt.

The while loop runs three times and it write the character 1st and 5th and 11th characters ("Trh") in the target.txt file.

Discussion:
21 comments Page 1 of 3.

Utkarsh said:   6 years ago
You are absolutely correct Thanks @Ritesh_Iiita.

Ankita said:   6 years ago
Why is the loop executed only for 3 times?

Leon(ZP) said:   7 years ago
Why 11th not 9th?

Divya said:   7 years ago
while(1) means rotating loop till stack overflow.

Kanchan Tiwari said:   8 years ago
I am not getting the while condition 1 is used for what. What does while (1) means?

Monakons said:   8 years ago
sizeof (int) and sizeof (long) are equal most of the times but you will find some platforms where int is 32 bits and long is 64 bits.

fseek waits for long int as the second argument but it's perfectly normal to use 4 (int) rather than 4L (long int), especially if the size is the same.

Nikhil said:   9 years ago
Will there be any change if we write 4 instead of 4L?

Aditi said:   1 decade ago
No, the answer is correct and the explanation by Ritesh is perfect.

Ravindra said:   1 decade ago
Answer is completely wrong. I tried in turbo C and it prints some different Answer.

Ritesh_IIITA said:   1 decade ago
Index Character
[0] T
[1] o
[2] space
[3] e
[4] r
[5] r
[6] space
[7] i
[8] s
[9] space
[10] h
[11] u
[12] m
[13] a
[14] n
[15] EOF

Now when while loop execution begins:

1st: ch=T and pointer will get incremented to point at index:1 i.e o.

2nd: check if ch==EOF result is no it will go to else block.

3rd: in else block processor will now seek new location by increment of 4 in pointers location so now pointer is pointing at index:5, in the next instruction it will print the value of ch i.e T.

4th: now 2nd iteration of while loop begins an now compiler will store a character from location where pointer is pointing i.e index:5 and store it into ch(==r) and increment the pointer by 1 thereby pointing to index:6.

5th: check if ch==EOF result is no it will go to else block.

6th: in else block processor will now seek new location by increment of 4 in pointers location. current index location is:6, so now pointer is pointing at index:10(6+4), in the next instruction it will print the value of ch i.e r.


7th: now 3rd iteration of while loop begins an now compiler will store a character from location where pointer is pointing i.e index:10 and store it into ch(==h) and increment the pointer by 1 thereby pointing to index:11.

8th: check if ch==EOF result is no it will go to else block.

9th: in else block processor will now seek new location by increment of 4 in pointers location. current index location is:11, so now pointer is pointing at index:15(11+4), in the next instruction it will print the value of ch i.e h.

10th: now 4th iteration of while loop begins an now compiler will store a character from location where pointer is pointing i.e index:15 and store it into ch(==EOF) and increment the pointer by 1 thereby pointing to index:16.

11th: check if ch==EOF result is true it will go inside of if block and their execute break statement and come out of while loop.

This is how step by step this program will get executed.


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