#include <stdio.h> char *fgets(char *restrict s, int n, FILE *restrict stream);
The fgets() function shall read bytes from stream into the array pointed to by s until n-1 bytes are read, or a <newline> is read and transferred to s, or an end-of-file condition is encountered. A null byte shall be written immediately after the last byte read into the array. If the end-of-file condition is encountered before any bytes are read, the contents of the array pointed to by s shall not be changed.
The fgets() function may mark the last data access timestamp of the file associated with stream for update. The last data access timestamp shall be marked for update by the first successful execution of fgetc(), fgets(), fread(), fscanf(), getc(), getchar(), getdelim(), getline(), gets(), or scanf() using stream that returns data not supplied by a prior call to ungetc().
The following sections are informative.
The following example uses fgets() to read lines of input. It assumes that the file it is reading is a text file and that lines in this text file are no longer than 16384 (or {LINE_MAX} if it is less than 16384 on the implementation where it is running) bytes long. (Note that the standard utilities have no line length limit if sysconf(_SC_LINE_MAX) returns -1 without setting errno. This example assumes that sysconf(_SC_LINE_MAX) will not fail.)
#include <limits.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#define MYLIMIT 16384
char *line;
int line_max;
if (LINE_MAX >= MYLIMIT) {
// Use maximum line size of MYLIMIT. If LINE_MAX is
// bigger than our limit, sysconf() cannot report a
// smaller limit.
line_max = MYLIMIT;
} else {
long limit = sysconf(_SC_LINE_MAX);
line_max = (limit < 0 || limit > MYLIMIT) ? MYLIMIT : (int)limit;
}
// line_max + 1 leaves room for the null byte added by fgets().
line = malloc(line_max + 1);
if (line == NULL) {
// out of space
...
return error;
}
while (fgets(line, line_max + 1, fp) != NULL) {
// Verify that a full line has been read ...
// If not, report an error or prepare to treat the
// next time through the loop as a read of a
// continuation of the current line.
...
// Process line ...
...
}
free(line);
...
The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1-2017, <stdio.h>
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