Read an input file into a single string

[pxllyte]

The input file data size is unknown so I would have to use malloc( ) to allocate enough memory for the file data. In order to do this, I would need to read each character of the file possibly by using a counter and then returning the counter as "totalChar" and allocating memory for it. The code I have so far is:

#define FILENAME_SIZE 15
#define FILESIZE_MAX 10000

char filename[FILENAME_SIZE];
char string[FILESIZE_MAX];

FILE *ifp;
printf("Enter the name of the file to analyze :");
scanf("%s", filename);
printf("\n");

ifp = fopen(filename, "r");
if (ifp == NULL)
{
   fprintf(stderr, "Could not open file: '%s' ", filename);
   exit (-1);
}

int c = fgetc(ifp);

while (c != EOF)
{
printf("%c", c);
c=fgetc(ifp);
}

fclose(ifp);

I tried to put in a counter in the while loop but that did not work at all. It just stopped the loop somehow. I'm stumped.

My memory allocation would look like this:

string = (char) malloc(totalChar * sizeof(char));

Am I on the right track of putting the input file into a single string?

Thanks!

[horace1]

you could get the file length using the fstat() function, create dynamic storage of the required size and then use read() to read that number of bytes into a char[], e.g.

// read file size and read file contents into a string
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <fcntl.h>

#define FILENAME_SIZE 15

char filename[FILENAME_SIZE];
char *string;

int main()
{
struct stat file_stat;
int         status, readSize;

printf("Enter the name of the file to analyze :");
scanf("%s", filename);
printf("\n");
int fildes = open(filename, O_RDONLY);             // open file
if (fildes < 0)
{
   fprintf(stderr, "Could not open file: '%s' ", filename);
   exit (-1);
}

// get file status for details see
// http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007908799/xsh/fstat.html
status = fstat(fildes, &file_stat);                 // get its status

// print file size informations for details see
//   http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007908799/xsh/sysstat.h.html
printf("file %s size %d\n", filename, file_stat.st_size);        // print status

// create storage for string and read it in
string=calloc(file_stat.st_size+1, sizeof(char));
readSize=read(fildes, string, file_stat.st_size);

// terminate the string at number of characters read and print it
string[readSize]='\0';
printf("%s", string);
close(fildes);
getchar();
getchar();
return 0;
}