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But I cant use all these nonstandard, system-dependent functions, because my program has to be ANSI compatible!
But I cant use all these nonstandard, system-dependent functions, because my program has to be ANSI compatible! You're out of luck. Either you misunderstood your requirement, or it's an impossible one to meet. ANSI/ISO Standard C simply does not define ways of doing these things; it is a language st...
2015-02-27, 1600👍, 0💬

I am trying to update a file in place ...
I'm trying to update a file in place, by using fopen mode "r+", reading a certain string, and writing back a modified string, but it's not working. Be sure to call fseek before you write, both to seek back to the beginning of the string you're trying to overwrite, and because an fseek or fflush is a...
2015-10-07, 1598👍, 0💬

How can I tell if standard input or output is redirected
How can I tell if standard input or output is redirected (i.e. whether ``&lt;'' or ``&gt;'' was used on the invocation command line)? You can't tell directly, but you can usually look at a few other things to make whatever decision you need to. If you want your program to take input from std...
2015-10-01, 1596👍, 0💬

How can I open files with names like ...
How can I open files with names like ``file1'', ``file2'', ``file3'', etc., where the numeric part is controlled by a variable? Basically I want ``file%d'', like printf.. You want printf's close cousin sprintf, which ``prints'' to a string: char filename[FILENAME_MAX]; sprintf(filename, "file%d", i)...
2015-10-07, 1595👍, 0💬

A third-party header file I just started using is defining its own TRUE and FALSE values incompatibly ...
A third-party header file I just started using is defining its own TRUE and FALSE values incompatibly with the code I've already developed. What can I do? This is indeed an annoying situation. It's a classic namespace problem;Ideally, third-party vendors would be conscientious when defining symbols ...
2016-02-26, 1593👍, 0💬

How can I change their mode to binary?
I'm writing a ``filter'' for binary files, but stdin and stdout are preopened as text streams. How can I change their mode to binary? There is no standard way to do this. On Unix-like systems, there is no text/binary distinction, so there is no need to change the mode. Some MS-DOS compilers supply a...
2015-09-21, 1588👍, 0💬

Why do some people write if(0 == x) instead of if(x == 0)?
Why do some people write if(0 == x) instead of if(x == 0)? It's a trick to guard against the common error of writing if(x = 0) If you're in the habit of writing the constant before the ==, the compiler will complain if you accidentally type if(0 = x) Evidently it can be easier for some people to rem...
2015-05-15, 1588👍, 0💬

How do I convert a string to all upper or lower case?
How do I convert a string to all upper or lower case? Some libraries have routines strupr and strlwr or strupper and strlower, but these are not Standard or portable. It's a straightforward exercise to write upper/lower-case functions in terms of the toupper and tolower macros in &lt;ctype.h>;(T...
2015-08-19, 1583👍, 0💬

How can I shut off the warning ...
How can I shut off the ``warning: possible pointer alignment problem'' message which lint gives me for each call to malloc? A modern lint shouldn't be complaining about this. Once upon a time, lint did not and could not know that malloc ``returns a pointer to space suitably aligned for storage of an...
2015-05-05, 1577👍, 0💬

I need a random true/false value ...
I need a random true/false value, so I'm just taking rand() % 2, but it's alternating 0, 1, 0, 1, 0... Poor pseudorandom number generators (such as the ones unfortunately supplied with some systems) are not very random in the low-order bits. (In fact, for a pure linear congruential random number gen...
2015-07-24, 1576👍, 0💬

Did C have any Year 2000 problems?
Did C have any Year 2000 problems? No, although poorly-written C programs might have. The tm_year field of struct tm holds the value of the year minus 1900; this field therefore contains the value 100 for the year 2000. Code that uses tm_year correctly (by adding or subtracting 1900 when converting ...
2015-08-03, 1572👍, 0💬

What are the differences between C and CPP?
What are the differences between C and CPP? Q: Is C++ a superset of C? What are the differences between C and C++? Can I use a C++ compiler to compile C code? A: C++ was derived from C, and is largely based on it, but there are some legal C constructs which are not legal C++. Conversely, ANSI C inhe...
2015-01-10, 1568👍, 0💬

How can I find out how much free space is available on disk?
How can I find out how much free space is available on disk? There is no portable way. Under some versions of Unix you can call statfs. Under MS-DOS, use interrupt 0x21 subfunction 0x36, or perhaps a routine such as diskfree. Another possibility is to use popen to invoke and read the output of a ``d...
2015-04-03, 1566👍, 0💬

People always say that good style is important
People always say that good style is important, but when they go out of their way to use clear techniques and make their programs readable, they seem to end up with less efficient programs. Since efficiency is so important, isn't it necessary to sacrifice some style and readability? It's true that g...
2015-05-06, 1564👍, 0💬

How can I insert or delete a line (or record) in the middle of a file?
How can I insert or delete a line (or record) in the middle of a file? In general, there is no way to do this. The usual solution is simply to rewrite the file. When you find yourself needing to insert data into an existing file, here are a few alternatives you can try: * Rearrange the data file so ...
2015-04-13, 1564👍, 0💬

How can I find out if there are characters available for reading?
How can I find out if there are characters available for reading (and if so, how many)? Alternatively, how can I do a read that will not block if there are no characters available? These, too, are entirely operating-system-specific. Some versions of curses have a nodelay function. Depending on your ...
2015-04-29, 1563👍, 0💬

I cant even get a simple fopen call to work
I can't even get a simple fopen call to work! What's wrong with this call? FILE *fp = fopen(filename, 'r'); fopen's mode argument must be a string, like "r", not a character like 'r'.
2015-10-09, 1558👍, 0💬

How can I get back to the interactive keyboard if stdin is redirected?
I'm trying to write a program like ``more.'' How can I get back to the interactive keyboard if stdin is redirected? There is no portable way of doing this. Under Unix, you can open the special file /dev/tty. Under MS-DOS, you can try opening the ``file'' CON, or use routines or BIOS calls such as ge...
2015-09-29, 1553👍, 0💬

What is the deal on sprintfs return value?
What's the deal on sprintf's return value? Is it an int or a char *? The Standard says that it returns an int (the number of characters written, just like printf and fprintf). Once upon a time, in some C libraries, sprintf returned the char * value of its first argument, pointing to the completed re...
2015-10-16, 1548👍, 0💬

My floating-point calculations are acting strangely and giving me different answers on different machines.
My floating-point calculations are acting strangely and giving me different answers on different machines. If the problem isn't that simple, recall that digital computers usually use floating-point formats which provide a close but by no means exact simulation of real number arithmetic. Among other ...
2015-06-29, 1544👍, 0💬

My compiler isnt letting me declare a function
My compiler isnt letting me declare a function A; My compiler isn't letting me declare a function int f(...) { } i.e. accepting a variable number of arguments, but with no fixed arguments at all. A: Standard C requires at least one fixed argument, in part so that you can hand it to va_start. (In any...
2015-06-08, 1544👍, 0💬

How should functions be apportioned among source files?
How should functions be apportioned among source files? Usually, related functions are put together in one file. Sometimes (as when developing libraries) it is appropriate to have exactly one source file (and, consequently, one object module) per independent function. Other times, and especially for...
2015-05-18, 1537👍, 0💬

I know that the library function localtime will convert ...
I know that the library function localtime will convert a time_t into a broken-down struct tm, and that ctime will convert a time_t to a printable string. How can I perform the inverse operations of converting a struct tm or a string into a time_t? ANSI C specifies a library function, mktime, which ...
2015-08-05, 1529👍, 0💬

How can I arrange to have output go two places at once, e.g. to the screen and to a file?
How can I arrange to have output go two places at once, e.g. to the screen and to a file? You can't do this directly, but you could write your own printf variant which printed everything twice. Here is a sample logprintf function which prints to both stdout and a preopened log file: #include &lt...
2015-09-29, 1527👍, 0💬

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