C program to read a file

C program to open a file

C programming code to open a file and to print it contents on screen.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
 
int main()
{
   char ch, file_name[25];
   FILE *fp;
 
   printf("Enter the name of file you wish to see\n");
   gets(file_name);
 
   fp = fopen(file_name,"r"); // read mode
 
   if( fp == NULL )
   {
      perror("Error while opening the file.\n");
      exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
   }
 
   printf("The contents of %s file are :\n", file_name);
 
   while( ( ch = fgetc(fp) ) != EOF )
      printf("%c",ch);
 
   fclose(fp);
   return 0;
}

Download Read file program.

Output of program:

There are blank lines present at end of file. In our program we have opened only one file but you can open multiple files in a single program and in different modes as desired. File handling is very important when we wish to store data permanently on a storage device. All variables and data of program is lost when program exits so if that data is required later we need to use files.