C/C++ Interactive Guide/c-cplusplus-interactive-guide.iso/c_ref/csource4/252_01/chap09.txt

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                                                    Chapter 9
                                        STANDARD INPUT/OUTPUT


THE STDIO.H HEADER FILE
____________________________________________________________

Load the file SIMPLEIO.C for our first look    ==============
at a file with standard I/O.  Standard I/O       SIMPLEIO.C
refers to the most usual places where data is  ==============
either read from, the keyboard, or written
to, the video monitor.  Since they are used
so much, they are used as the default I/O devices and do not
need to be named in the Input/Output instructions.  This will
make more sense when we actually start to use them so lets
look at the file in front of you.

The first thing you should take notice of is the second line
of the file, the line with #include "stdio.h".  This is very
much like the #define we have already studied, except that
instead of a simple substitution, an entire file is read in
at this point.  The system will find the file named STDIO.H
and read its entire contents in, replacing this statement.
Obviously then, the file named STDIO.H must contain valid C
source statements that can be compiled as part of a program.
This particular file is composed of several standard #defines
to define some of the standard I/O operations.  The file is
called a header file and you will find several different
header files on the source disks that came with your C
compiler.  Each of the header files has a specific purpose and
any or all of them can be included in any program.

Your C compiler uses the double quote marks to indicate that
the search for the include file will begin in the current
directory, and if it not found there, the search will continue
in the include directory as set up in the environment.  It
also uses the "less than" and "greater than" signs to indicate
that the file search should begin in the directory specified
in the environment.  Most of the programs in this tutorial
have the double quotes in the include statements.  The next
program uses the "<" and ">" to illustrate the usage.  Note
that this will result is a slightly faster (but probably
unnoticeable) compilation because the system will not bother
to search the current directory first.


INPUT/OUTPUT OPERATIONS IN C
____________________________________________________________

Actually the C programming language has no input or output
operations defined as part of the language, they must be user
defined.  Since everybody does not want to reinvent his own
input and output operations, the compiler writers have done

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a lot of this for us and supplied us with several input
functions and several output functions to aid in our program
development.  The functions have become a standard, and you
will find the same functions available in nearly every
compiler.  In fact, the industry standard of the C language
definition has become the book written by Kernigan and
Ritchie, and they have included these functions in their
definition.  You will often, when reading literature about C,
find an author refer to K & R.  This refers to the book, "The
C Programming Language", written by Kernigan and Ritchie.  You
would be advised to purchase a copy for reference.  As of this
writing, a second edition of this book is available and is the
preferred edition.

You should print out the file named STDIO.H and spend some
time studying it.  There will be a lot that you will not
understand about it, but parts of it will look familiar.  The
name STDIO.H is sort of cryptic for "standard input/output
header", because that is exactly what it is.  It defines the
standard input and output functions in the form of #defines
and macros.  Don't worry too much about the details of this
now.  You can always return to this topic later for more study
if it interests you, but you will really have no need to
completely understand the STDIO.H file.  You will have a
tremendous need to use it however, so these comments on its
use and purpose are necessary.


OTHER INCLUDE FILES
____________________________________________________________

When you begin writing larger programs and splitting them up
into separately compiled portions, you will have occasion to
use some statements common to each of the portions.  It would
be to your advantage to make a separate file containing the
statements and use the #include to insert it into each of the
files.  If you want to change any of the common statements,
you will only need to change one file and you will be assured
of having all of the common statements agree.  This is getting
a little ahead of ourselves but you now have an idea how the
#include directive can be used.


BACK TO THE FILE NAMED SIMPLEIO.C
____________________________________________________________

Lets continue our tour of the file in question.  The one
variable named c is defined and a message is printed out with
the familiar printf() function.  We then find ourselves in a
continuous loop as long as the value of c is not equal to
capital X.  If there is any question in your mind about the
loop control, you should review chapter 3 before continuing.
The two new functions within the loop are of paramount
interest in this program since they are the new functions.

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These are functions to read a character from the keyboard and
display it on the monitor one character at a time.

The function getchar() reads a single character from the
standard input device, the keyboard being assumed because that
is the standard input device, and assigns it to the variable
named c.  The next function putchar(), uses the standard
output device, the video monitor, and outputs the character
contained in the variable named c.  The character is output
at the current cursor location and the cursor is advanced one
space for the next character.  The system is therefore taking
care of a lot of the overhead for us.  The loop continues
reading and displaying characters until we type a capital X
which terminates the loop.

Compile and run this program for a few surprises.  When you
type on the keyboard, you will notice that what you type is
displayed faithfully on the screen, and when you hit the
return key, the entire line is repeated.  We only told it to
output each character once but it seems to be saving the
characters up and redisplaying them.  A short explanation is
in order.


DOS IS HELPING US OUT
____________________________________________________________

We need to understand a little bit about how DOS works to
understand what is happening here.  When data is read from the
keyboard, under DOS control, the characters are stored in a
buffer until a carriage return is entered at which time the
entire string of characters is given to the program.  When the
characters are being typed, however, the characters are
displayed one at a time on the monitor.  This is called echo,
and happens in many of the applications you run.

With the above paragraph in mind, it should be clear that when
you are typing a line of data into SIMPLEIO, the characters
are being echoed by DOS, and when you return the carriage by
hitting return or enter, the characters are given to the
program.  As each character is given to the program, it
displays it on the screen resulting in a repeat of the line
typed in.  To better illustrate this, type a line with a
capital X somewhere in the middle of the line.  You can type
as many characters as you like following the X and they will
all display because the characters are being read in under
DOS, echoed to the monitor, and placed in the DOS input
buffer.  DOS doesn't think there is anything special about a
capital X.  When the string is given to the program, however,
the characters are accepted by the program one at a time and
sent to the monitor one at a time, until a capital X is
encountered.  After the capital X is displayed, the loop is
terminated, and the program is terminated.  The characters on
the input line following the capital X are not displayed

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because the capital X signalled program termination.  Compile
and run SIMPLEIO.C.  After running the program several times
and feeling confident that you understand the above
explanation, we will go on to another program.

Don't get discouraged by the above seemingly weird behavior
of the I/O system.  It is strange, but there are other ways
to get data into the computer.  You will actually find the
above method useful for many applications, and you will
probably find some of the following useful also.


ANOTHER STRANGE I/O METHOD
____________________________________________________________

Load the file named SINGLEIO.C and display it  ==============
on your monitor for another method of            SINGLEIO.C
character I/O.  Once again, we start with the  ==============
standard I/O header file using the "<" and
">" method of defining it.  Then we define a
variable named c, and finally we print a welcoming message.
Like the last program, we are in a loop that will continue to
execute until we type a capital X, but the action is a little
different here.

The function named getch() is a get character function.  It
differs from the function named getchar() in that it does not
get tied up in DOS.  It reads the character in without echo,
and puts it directly into the program where it is operated on
immediately.  This function therefore reads a character,
immediately displays it on the screen, and continues the
operation until a capital X is typed.  Note that although
getch() is available with most popular microcomputer C
compilers, it is not included in the ANSI standard and may not
be available with all C compilers.  It's use may therefore
make a program nonportable.

When you compile and run this program, you will find that
there is no repeat of the lines when you hit a carriage
return, and when you hit the capital X, the program terminates
immediately.  No carriage return is needed to get it to accept
the line with the X in it.  We do have another problem here,
however, there is no linefeed with the carriage return.


NOW WE NEED A LINE FEED
____________________________________________________________

It is not apparent to you in most application  ==============
programs but when you hit the enter key, the     BETTERIN.C
program supplies a linefeed to go with the     ==============
carriage return.  You need to return to the
left side of the monitor and you also need to
drop down a line.  The linefeed is not automatic. We need to

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improve our program to do this also.  If you will load and
display the program named BETTERIN.C, you will find a change
to incorporate this feature.

In BETTERIN.C, we have two additional statements at the
beginning that will define the character codes for the
linefeed (LF), and the carriage return (CR).  If you look at
any ASCII table you will find that the codes 10 and 13 are
exactly as defined here.  In the main program, after
outputting the character in line 15, we compare it to CR, and
if it is equal to CR, we also output a linefeed which is the
LF.  We could have completely omitted the two #define
statements and used the statement if (c == 13) putchar(10);
but it would not be very descriptive of what we are doing
here.  The method used in the program represents better
programming practice.

Compile and run BETTERIN.C to see if it does what we have said
it should do.  It should display exactly what you type in,
including a linefeed with each carriage return, and should
stop immediately when you type a capital X.


WHICH METHOD IS BEST?
____________________________________________________________

We have examined two methods of reading characters into a C
program, and are faced with a choice of which one we should
use.  It really depends on the application because each method
has advantages and disadvantages.

When using the first method, DOS is actually doing all of the
work for us by storing the characters in an input buffer and
signalling us when a full line has been entered.  We could
write a program that, for example, did a lot of calculations,
then went to get some input.  While we were doing the
calculations, DOS would be accumulating a line of characters
for us, and they would be there when we were ready for them.
However, we could not read in single keystrokes because DOS
would not report a buffer of characters to us until it
recognized a carriage return.

The second method, used in BETTERIN.C, allows us to get a
single character, and act on it immediately.  We do not have
to wait until DOS decides we can have a line of characters.
We cannot do anything else while we are waiting for a
character because we are waiting for the input keystroke and
tying up the entire machine.  This method is useful for highly
interactive types of program interfaces.  It is up to you as
the programmer to decide which is best for your needs.

I should mention at this point that there is also an ungetch()
function that works with the getch() function.  If you getch
a character and find that you have gone one too far, you can

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ungetch it back to the input device.  This simplifies some
programs because you don't know that you don't want the
character until you get it.  You can only ungetch() one
character back to the input device, but that is sufficient to
accomplish the task this function was designed for.  It is
difficult to demonstrate this function in a simple program so
its use will be up to you to study when you need it.  Another
function that may be available with your compiler, but is not
part of the ANSI standard, is the getche() function which is
identical to the getch() function except that it echoes the
character to the monitor for you.

The discussion so far in this chapter, should be a good
indication that, while the C programming language is very
flexible, it does put a lot of responsibility on you as the
programmer to keep many details in mind.


NOW TO READ IN SOME INTEGERS
____________________________________________________________

Load and display the file named INTIN.C for     =============
an example of reading in some formatted data.      INTIN.C
The structure of this program is very similar   =============
to the last three except that we define an
int type variable and loop until the variable
somehow acquires the value of 100.

Instead of reading in a character at a time, as we have in the
last three example programs, we read in an entire integer
value with one call using the function named scanf().  This
function is very similar to the printf() that you have been
using for quite some time by now except that it is used for
input instead of output.  Examine the line with the scanf()
and you will notice that it does not ask for the variable
valin directly, but gives the address of the variable since
it expects to have a value returned from the function.  Recall
that a function must have the address of a variable in order
to return a value to that variable in the calling program.
Failing to supply a pointer in the scanf() function is the
most common problem encountered in using this function.

The function scanf() scans the input line until it finds the
first data field.  It ignores leading blanks and in this case,
it reads integer characters until it finds a blank or an
invalid decimal character, at which time it stops reading and
returns the value.

Remembering our discussion above about the way the DOS input
buffer works, it should be clear that nothing is actually
acted on until a complete line is entered and it is terminated
by a carriage return.  At this time, the buffer is input, and
our program will search across the line reading all integer
values it can find until the line is completely scanned.  This

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is because we are in a loop and we tell it to find a value,
print it, find another, print it, etc.  If you enter several
values on one line, it will read each one in succession and
display the values.  Entering the value of 100 will cause the
program to terminate, and entering the value 100 with other
values following, will cause termination before the following
values are considered.



IT MAKES WRONG ANSWERS SOMETIMES
____________________________________________________________

If you enter a number up to and including 32767, it will
display correctly, but if you enter a larger number, it will
appear to make an error unless your system uses a much larger
range for an int type variable.  For example, if you enter the
value 32768, it will display the value of -32768, entering the
value 65536 will display as a zero.  These are not errors but
are caused by the way an integer is defined.  The most
significant bit of the 16 bit pattern available for the
integer variable is the sign bit, so there are only 15 bits
left for the value.  The variable can therefore only have the
values from -32768 to 32767, any other values are outside the
range of integer variables.  This is up to you to take care
of in your programs.  It is another example of the increased
responsibility you must assume using C rather than another
high level language such as Pascal, Modula-2, etc.

The above paragraph is true for most MS-DOS C compilers.
There is a very small possibility that your compiler uses an
integer value stored in a field size other than 16 bits.  If
that is the case, the same principles will be true but with
different limits than those given above.

Compile and run this program, entering several numbers on a
line to see the results, and with varying numbers of blanks
between the numbers.  Try entering numbers that are too big
to see what happens, and finally enter some invalid characters
to see what the system does with nondecimal characters.



CHARACTER STRING INPUT
____________________________________________________________

Load and display the file named STRINGIN.C     ==============
for an example of reading a string variable.     STRINGIN.C
This program is identical to the last one      ==============
except that instead of an integer variable,
we have defined a string variable with an
upper limit of 24 characters (remember that a string variable
must have a null character at the end).  The variable in the
scanf() does not need an & because big is an array variable

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and by definition it is already a pointer.  This program
should require no additional explanation.  Compile and run it
to see if it works the way you expect.

You probably got a surprise when you ran it because it
separated your sentence into separate words.  When used in the
string mode of input, scanf() reads characters into the string
until it comes to either the end of a line or a blank
character.  Therefore, it reads a word, finds the blank
following it, and displays the result.  Since we are in a
loop, this program continues to read words until it exhausts
the DOS input buffer.  We have written this program to stop
whenever it finds a capital X in column 1, but since the
sentence is split up into individual words, it will stop
anytime a word begins with capital X.  Try entering a 5 word
sentence with a capital X as the first character in the third
word.  You should get the first three words displayed, and the
last two simply ignored when the program stops.

Try entering more than 24 characters to see what the program
does.  In an actual program, it is your responsibility to
count characters and stop when the input buffer is full.  You
may be getting the feeling that a lot of responsibility is
placed on you when writing in C.  It is, but you also get a
lot of flexibility in the bargain too.



INPUT/OUTPUT PROGRAMMING IN C
____________________________________________________________

C was not designed to be used as a language for lots of input
and output, but as a systems language where a lot of internal
operations are required.  You would do well to use another
language for I/O intensive programming, but C could be used
if you desire.  The keyboard input is very flexible, allowing
you to get at the data in a very low level way, but very
little help is given you.  It is therefore up to you to take
care of all of the bookkeeping chores associated with your
required I/O operations.  This may seem like a real pain in
the neck, but in any given program, you only need to define
your input routines once and then use them as needed.  Don't
let this worry you.  As you gain experience with C, you will
easily handle your I/O requirements.

One final point must be made about these I/O functions.  It
is perfectly permissible to intermix scanf() and getchar()
functions during read operations.  In the same manner, it is
also fine to intermix the output functions, printf() and
putchar().





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IN MEMORY I/O
____________________________________________________________

The next operation may seem a little strange    =============
at first, but you will probably see lots of        INMEM.C
uses for it as you gain experience.  Load the   =============
file named INMEM.C and display it for another
type of I/O, one that never accesses the
outside world, but stays in the computer.

In INMEM.C, we define a few variables, then assign some values
to the ones named numbers for illustrative purposes and then
use an sprintf() function.  The function acts just like a
normal printf() function except that instead of printing the
line of output to a device, it prints the line of formatted
output to a character string in memory.  In this case the
string goes to the string variable named line, because that
is the string name we inserted as the first argument in the
sprintf() function.  The spaces after the 2nd %d were put
there to illustrate that the next function will search
properly across the line.  We print the resulting string and
find that the output is identical to what it would have been
by using a printf() instead of the sprintf() in the first
place.  You will see that when you compile and run the program
shortly.

Since the generated string is still in memory, we can now read
it with the function sscanf().  We tell the function in its
first argument that line is the string to use for its input,
and the remaining parts of the line are exactly what we would
use if we were going to use the scanf() function and read data
from outside the computer.  Note that it is essential that we
use pointers to the data because we want to return data from
a function.  Just to illustrate that there are many ways to
declare a pointer several methods are used, but all are
pointers.  The first two simply declare the address of the
elements of the array, while the last three use the fact that
result, without the accompanying subscript, is a pointer.
Just to keep it interesting, the values are read back in
reverse order.  Finally the values are displayed on the
monitor.


IS THAT REALLY USEFUL?
____________________________________________________________

It seems sort of silly to read input data from within the
computer but it does have a real purpose.  It is possible to
read data from an input device using any of the standard
functions and then do a format conversion in memory.  You
could read in a line of data, look at a few significant
characters, then use these formatted input routines to reduce
the line of data to internal representation.  That would sure
beat writing your own data formatting routines.

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                            Chapter 9 - Standard Input/Output


STANDARD ERROR OUTPUT
____________________________________________________________

Sometimes it is desirable to redirect the       =============
output from the standard output device to a       SPECIAL.C
file.  However, you may still want the error    =============
messages to go to the standard output device,
in our case the monitor.  This next function
allows you to do that.  Load and display SPECIAL.C for an
example of this new function.

The program consists of a loop with two messages output, one
to the standard output device and the other to the standard
error device.  The message to the standard error device is
output with the function fprintf() and includes the device
name stderr as the first argument.  Other than those two small
changes, it is the same as our standard printf function.  (You
will see more of the fprintf() function in the next chapter,
but its operation fit in better as a part of this chapter.)
Ignore the line with the exit for the moment, we will return
to it.

Compile and run this program, and you will find 12 lines of
output on the monitor.  To see the difference, run the program
again with redirected output to a file named STUFF by entering
the following line at the DOS prompt;

     A> special >stuff

This time you will only get the 6 lines output to the standard
error device, and if you look in your directory, you will find
the file named STUFF containing the other 6 lines, those to
the standard output device.  You can use I/O redirection with
any of the programs we have run so far, and as you may guess,
you can also read from a file using I/O redirection but we
will study a better way to read from a file in the next
chapter.  More information about I/O redirection can be found
in your DOS manual.



WHAT ABOUT THE exit(4) STATEMENT?
____________________________________________________________

Now to keep our promise about the exit(4) statement. Redisplay
the file named SPECIAL.C on your monitor.  The last statement
simply exits the program and returns the value of 4 to DOS.
Any number from 0 to 9 can be used in the parentheses for DOS
communication.  If you are operating in a BATCH file, this
number can be tested with the ERRORLEVEL command.

Most compilers that operate in several passes return a 1 with
this mechanism to indicate that a fatal error has been

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                            Chapter 9 - Standard Input/Output

detected and it would be a waste of time to go on to another
pass resulting in even more errors.

It is therefore wise to use a batch file for compiling
programs and testing the returned value for errors.  A check
of the documentation for my Compaq, resulted in a minimal and
confusing documentation of the ERRORLEVEL command, so a brief
description of it is given in this file in case your
documentation does not include enough information to allow you
to use it.

One additional feature must be mentioned here.  Since we wish
to return an int value to the operating system, we must define
the main program entry point as returning an int rather than
a void as we have used in most of the example programs to this
point.  Refer to line 5 for an example of this extension.


PROGRAMMING EXERCISE
____________________________________________________________

1.   Write a program to read in a character using a loop, and
     display the character in its normal char form.  Also
     display it as a decimal number. Check for a dollar sign
     to use as the stop character.  Use the getch() form of
     input so it will print immediately.  Hit some of the
     special keys, such as function keys, when you run the
     program for some surprises. You will get two inputs from
     the special keys, the first being a zero which is the
     indication to the system that a special key was hit.























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