From the course: C: Data Structures, Pointers, and File Systems

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Using random file access

Using random file access - C Tutorial

From the course: C: Data Structures, Pointers, and File Systems

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Using random file access

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- [Instructor] When a file is opened for reading or writing the operating system uses a file position indicator to keep track of where data is written to or read from in the file. Sequential file access reads from or writes to a file one byte after another. The file position indicator keeps moving forward until the EOF is encountered or the FEOF function returns true for a given file handle. With random file access, the file position indicator can be set to any location in a file to read or write data. This feature works best for files that contain uniform data, such as a file of integer values, structures, or similar consistent data. The fseek function controls the file position indicator. Its three arguments are the file handle or stream, a long integer offset representing the offset within the file, and a constant as the third argument representing from whence the offset is measured. Seek_set from the start of the file. Seek_cur from the current file position indicator's location…

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