C program to remove a line from the file


A file is a physical storage location on disk and a directory is a logical path which is used to organise the files. A file exists within a directory.

The three operations that we can perform on file are as follows −

  • Open a file.
  • Process file (read, write, modify).
  • Save and close file.

Algorithm

An algorithm is given below to explain the C program to remove a line from the file.

Step 1 − Read file path and line number to remove at runtime.

Step 2 − Open file in read mode and store in source file.

Step 3 − Create and open a temporary file in write mode and store its reference in Temporary file.

Step 4 − Initialize a count = 1 to track line number.

Step 5 − Read a line from source file and store it in buffer.

Step 6 − If current line is not equal to line to remove i.e. if (line != count), then write buffer to temporary file.

Step 7 − Increment count++.

Step 8 − Repeat step 5-7 till end of source file.

Step 9 − Close both files i.e. source file and temporary file.

Step 10 − Delete our original source file.

Step 11 − Rename temporary file with source file path.

Program

Following is the C program to remove a line from the file

 Live Demo

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#define BUFFER_SIZE 1000
void deleteLine(FILE *src, FILE *temp, const int line);
void printFile(FILE *fptr);
int main(){
   FILE *src;
   FILE *temp;
   char ch;
   char path[100];
   int line;
   src=fopen("cprogramming.txt","w");
   printf("enter the text.press cntrl Z:
");    while((ch = getchar())!=EOF){       putc(ch,src);    }    fclose(src);    printf("Enter file path: ");    scanf("%s", path);    printf("Enter line number to remove: ");    scanf("%d", &line);    src = fopen(path, "r");    temp = fopen("delete.tmp", "w");    if (src == NULL || temp == NULL){       printf("Unable to open file.
");       exit(EXIT_FAILURE);    }    printf("
File contents before removing line.

");    printFile(src);    // Move src file pointer to beginning    rewind(src);    // Delete given line from file.    deleteLine(src, temp, line);    /* Close all open files */    fclose(src);    fclose(temp);    /* Delete src file and rename temp file as src */    remove(path);    rename("delete.tmp", path);    printf("


File contents after removing %d line.

", line);    // Open source file and print its contents    src = fopen(path, "r");    printFile(src);    fclose(src);    return 0; } void printFile(FILE *fptr){    char ch;    while((ch = fgetc(fptr)) != EOF)    putchar(ch); } void deleteLine(FILE *src, FILE *temp, const int line){    char buffer[BUFFER_SIZE];    int count = 1;    while ((fgets(buffer, BUFFER_SIZE, src)) != NULL){       if (line != count)          fputs(buffer, temp);       count++;    } }

Output

When the above program is executed, it produces the following result −

enter the text.press cntrl Z:
Hi welcome to my world
This is C programming tutorial
You want to learn C programming
Subscribe the course in TutorialsPoint
^Z
Enter file path: cprogramming.txt
Enter line number to remove: 2

File contents before removing line.
Hi welcome to my world
This is C programming tutorial
You want to learn C programming
Subscribe the course in TutorialsPoint

File contents after removing 2 line.

Hi welcome to my world
You want to learn C programming
Subscribe the course in TutorialsPoint

Updated on: 31-Aug-2021

8K+ Views

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