Beginning C: From Novice to Professional, Fourth Edition

CHAPTER 12Working with Files

If your computer could only ever process data stored within the main memory of the machine, the scope and variety of applications that you could deal with would be severely limited. Virtually all serious business applications require more data than would fit into main memory and depend on the ability to process data that's stored on an external device, such as a fixed disk drive. In this chapter, you'll explore how you can process data stored in files on an external device.

C provides a range of functions in the header file <stdio.h> for writing to and reading from external devices. The external device you would use for storing and retrieving data is typically a fixed disk drive, but not exclusively. Because, consistent ...