How to read a file word by word?

Question

I am confused that how to give break line after every word which is present in a file.

Words in text file

Name    Date of birth     <----  I put this in code  
John    02\02\1999        <----  I want to jump to this line

I want this

Here is your: Name
Here is your: Date of Birth

But it is giving me this

Here is your: N 
Here is your: a 
Here is your: m 
Here is your: e

And I don't know how to get it.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int main(){

    FILE * fr = fopen("/home/bilal/Documents/file.txt","r");
    char ch;

    if(fr != NULL){
        while(!feof(fr)){
            ch = fgetc(fr);
            printf("Here is your %c\n: ", ch);
        }
        fclose(fr);
    }
    else{
        printf("Unable to read file.");
    }

    return 0;
}

Also please read [Why is “while ( !feof (file) )” always wrong?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5431941/why-is-while-feof-file-always-wrong) — Some programmer dude, May 14 '20 at 22:35
You're asking for a character at a time and that's what you're getting. — TomServo, May 14 '20 at 22:47
I want word like name, date of birth etc which is present in text file. Not each character one by one. — Natasha Bibi, May 14 '20 at 22:50
Horizontally stored 'Name Date of birth ID card number Phone number Address Account Fixing year Deposit amount' — Natasha Bibi, May 14 '20 at 22:51
There are 3 words in `date of birth `. It seems that you want to print line by line, not word by word. — Hitokiri, May 14 '20 at 22:57
So, you want to group together some words into a sentence, but if they are all on the same line, what should the program use to be able to tell where one sentence ends and the next one begins? The first letter of the word being in upper case signals the start of the next sentence? — isrnick, May 14 '20 at 23:03
Yeah. Now I want a group of some words like 'Date of Birth' and then if it finishes then another like ID card number etc. The text file contains horizontal words not vertically. — Natasha Bibi, May 14 '20 at 23:08
In the file is it written as `Date of birth` or as `Date of Birth`? If only the first letter in every word in all the sentences is in uppercase (like in `Date of birth`) it is possible to do something to separate sentences automatically, however the if that is not the case, such as in `Date of Birth` then there is no way to detect were one sentence ends and the next one begins, the only option would be to count the words while known previously how many words each sentence will have to group them together. — isrnick, May 14 '20 at 23:19

Christopher Moore · Accepted Answer · 2020-05-14T23:15:01.167

1

Within your while loop instead of immediately printing the character that you read, store the char in a char array. Add an if statement that does a comparison that checks if the read char is a space character. If it is you should print the stored array and set the index of the array back to 0.

Example:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int main(){

    FILE * fr = fopen("file.txt","r");
    char ch[100];
    int index = 0;

    if(fr != NULL){
        while((ch[index] = fgetc(fr)) != EOF){
            //printf("%c\n", ch[index]);
            if(ch[index] == ' ') {
                ch[index] = '\0';
                printf("Here is your: %s\n", ch);
                index = 0;
            }
            else {
                index++;
            }
        }
        fclose(fr);
    }
    else{
        printf("Unable to read file.");
    }
    return 0;
}

edited May 14 '20 at 23:15

answered May 14 '20 at 22:35

Christopher Moore

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It is giving me Here is your : 11. I don't 11s in text file. – Natasha Bibi May 14 '20 at 23:02
@NatashaBibi I made an edit. It should work now. – Christopher Moore May 14 '20 at 23:10
It worked but not like I want means it is giving me Here is your: Date , Here is your: of, Here is your: Birth. I want this to be Here is your Date of Birth. – Natasha Bibi May 14 '20 at 23:15
Did you get what I am talking about. Please read the question again if it is not clear to you. – Natasha Bibi May 14 '20 at 23:16
1

It's clear. If you want that then you have to somehow distinguish groups of words in the file. The way it's currently implemented makes it impossible for the code to determine by itself which words should be grouped together. – Christopher Moore May 14 '20 at 23:16
Do you want me to remove some words and place words without spaces? – Natasha Bibi May 14 '20 at 23:18
I'm not sure you mean. You can do any solution that you want. There just isn't a way to do what you're asking with the _current_ method the words are being stored. – Christopher Moore May 14 '20 at 23:20
Okay bro. Thank you for your support! – Natasha Bibi May 14 '20 at 23:20
You could start each group of words with a capital letter to distinguish the groups or something like that. It depends on any restrictions that you have. – Christopher Moore May 14 '20 at 23:22
1

It is necessary to check if the first letter of the word is in uppercase, if it is then it is the start of the next sentence... It is the only way I can think of to group the words into sentences. – isrnick May 14 '20 at 23:24
Hey, I made an array and put those words there. Here is question. If I want to move to the next line to fetch those values of related to name, DOB, etc. How would I do that to move to next row? I have also added details for you to check out. – Natasha Bibi May 14 '20 at 23:51
You can check for '\n' the same way the current code is checking for a space. – Christopher Moore May 15 '20 at 00:00
Could you just write. I wrote but confused. – Natasha Bibi May 15 '20 at 00:02
What is your expected output of the data? – Christopher Moore May 15 '20 at 00:08
const char listings[8][51] = {"Name", "Date of birth"}; Now I want to fetch values of those names and DOB from text file. Because I put this in array and there are a lot of data of names and DOB so I can't put in code. – Natasha Bibi May 15 '20 at 00:32
I think you should make a new question. Your actual question is changing a lot and I think it would be clearer to put this in a new question. – Christopher Moore May 15 '20 at 00:34
Okay I will put new question. – Natasha Bibi May 15 '20 at 00:40

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered May 15 '20 at 00:01

Based on the line of text of the file provided we can assume that if the first letter of the word is in uppercase then it is the start of the next sentence:

Name Date of birth ID card number Phone number Address Account Fixing year

And use this to divide the line into sentences.

So here is the code by Christopher changed to group the words into sentences:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <ctype.h>

int main(){

    FILE * fr = fopen("file.txt","r");
    char ch[100];
    int index = 0;

    if(fr != NULL){
        while((ch[index] = fgetc(fr)) != EOF){
            if(index > 0 && ch[index-1] == ' ' && isupper(ch[index])) {
                ch[index-1] = '\0';
                printf("Here is your: %s\n", ch);
                ch[0] = ch[index];
                index = 1;
            }
            else {
                index++;
            }
        }
        ch[index] = '\0';
        printf("Here is your: %s\n", ch);
        fclose(fr);
    }
    else{
        printf("Unable to read file.");
    }
    return 0;
}

I want to read second row. Because I put those words in array and the values of those words are without spaces. — Natasha Bibi, May 15 '20 at 00:06

How to read a file word by word?

2 Answers2