Random-Access Files in C programming

Random-Access File

Individual records of a random-access file are normally fixed in length and may be accessed directly (and thus quickly) without searching through other records.

This makes random-access files appropriate for :

airline reservation systems
banking systems
point-of-sale systems
other kinds of transaction-processing systems that require rapid access to specific data.

Random-Access File in C — Random-Access File

Fixed-length records enable data to be inserted in a random-access file without destroying other data in the file. Data stored previously can also be updated or deleted without rewriting the entire file.

Creating a Random-Access File

Functions fwrite and fread are capable of reading and writing arrays of data to and from disk. The third argument of both fread and fwrite is the number of elements in the array that should be read from or written to disk.

The following program open a random-access file, define a record format using a struct, write data to the disk and close the file.

   
    // Creating a random-access file sequentially
    #include <stdio.h>
    
    // clientData structure definition            
    struct clientData {                              
    unsigned int acctNum; // account number
    char lastName[ 15 ]; // account last name    
    char firstName[ 10 ]; // account first name   
    double balance; // account balance      
    }; // end structure clientData                
    int main( void ) { 
    unsigned int i; // counter used to count from 1-100
    
    // create clientData with default information       
    struct clientData blankClient = { 0, "", "", 0.0 }; 
    FILE *cfPtr; // credit.dat file pointer
    
    // fopen opens the file; exits if file cannot be opened
    if ( ( cfPtr = fopen( "credit.dat", "wb" ) ) == NULL ) {
      puts( "File could not be opened." );
    } // end if
    else { 
    
    // output 100 blank records to file                              
      for ( i = 1; i <= 100; ++i ) {                                   
      fwrite( &blankClient, sizeof( struct clientData ), 1, cfPtr );
      } // end for                                                     
      fclose ( cfPtr ); // fclose closes the file
      } // end else
    } // end main

Writing Data Randomly to a Random-Access File

The program writes data to the file "credit.dat". It uses the combination of fseek and fwrite to store data at specific locations in the file.

Function fseek sets the file position pointer to a specific position in the file, then fwrite writes the data.

   
    // Writing data randomly to a random-access file
    #include <stdio.h>
    
    // clientData structure definition               
    struct clientData {                              
    unsigned int acctNum; // account number
    char lastName[ 15 ]; // account last name    
    char firstName[ 10 ]; // account first name   
    double balance; // account balance   
    }; // end structure clientData                   
 
    int main( void )  { 
    FILE *cfPtr; // credit.dat file pointer
    
    // create clientData with default information
    struct clientData client = { 0, "", "", 0.0 };
    
    // fopen opens the file; exits if file cannot be opened
    if ( ( cfPtr = fopen( "credit.dat", "rb+" ) ) == NULL ) {
      puts( "File could not be opened." );
    } // end if
    else { 
    
    // require user to specify account number
      printf( "%s", "Enter account number"
         " ( 1 to 100, 0 to end input )\n? " );
      scanf( "%d", &client.acctNum );
    
    // user enters information, which is copied into file
    while ( client.acctNum != 0 ) { 
    
    // user enters last name, first name and balance
    printf( "%s", "Enter lastname, firstname, balance\n? " );
    
    // set record lastName, firstName and balance value
    fscanf( stdin, "%14s%9s%lf", client.lastName, 
              client.firstName, &client.balance );
    // seek position in file to user-specified record   
      fseek( cfPtr, ( client.acctNum - 1 ) *              
            sizeof( struct clientData ), SEEK_SET );         
    
    // write user-specified information in file              
      fwrite( &client, sizeof( struct clientData ), 1, cfPtr );
    
    // enable user to input another account number
      printf( "%s", "Enter account number\n? " );
      scanf( "%d", &client.acctNum );
      } // end while
      fclose( cfPtr ); // fclose closes the file
      } // end else
    } // end main


    Output:
    
    Enter account number ( 1 to 100, 0 to end input )
    ? 37
    
    Enter lastname, firstname, balance
    ? Barker Doug 0.00
    
    Enter account number
    ? 29
    
    Enter lastname, firstname, balance
    ? Brown Nancy -24.54
    
    Enter account number
    ? 96
    
    Enter account number
    ? 0

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