FILE data type?

[aaronvegh]

Hi there,
I've got some C experience, but not a ton. I'm working on integrating a library of C code into a C project that I'm writing, but I'm stumbling on supplying a required argument because I don't have the right data type. The function signature is

static void blockPrint (FILE *fp, const BYTE *block, int blockBits, const char *tag)

It's the first argument that I'm not getting. In the example code for this function, a regular string is being sent to this function (i.e. "file.txt"), but in my code I have the file path in question supplied as a const char *. But what the heck is a var of type FILE? I can't find this anywhere in Google or the C docs.

I'm guessing this is a total n00b question, but a little help would... uh, help.

Thanks!
Aaron.

 

[trollacious]

Found through Google:

http://www.exforsys.com/tutorials/c-language/file-management-in-c.html

Lee

 

[aaronvegh]

Ah, good search! That did it. For the kids at home, the FILE type actually requires a connected resource via the fopen() call. So you can't simply declare a variable of type FILE; you have to then use it to open a file.

FILE *realFile = fopen(theFile, "r");
blockPrint(realFile, block, BITSPERBLOCK, "PT");

Cheers!
Aaron.

 

[ArkM]

Strictly speaking, in C the FILE type is a library defined (in stdio.h header) type alias (see typedef keyword). No need to use FILE type as such, only FILE* (pointer to FILE) type. It's (one of C language funny idioms.
As usually, FILE type alias denotes library defined structure, but don't use its members directly (it's implementation dependent entity).