How do I open a file and store the contents of that file into a character array?

[TRkats]

I am trying to store a large text file into an array so I can count the number of characters.

[donbock]

Might the text file be so big that your program can't allocate enough RAM to hold it? If so, then you'll need a different approach.

Is you only interest counting the number of characters in the file? You can do that without constructing an image of the entire file in an array.

[weaknessforcats]

Are you using C++? Or C ?