Stdio.h

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C++ Standard Library headers
C Standard Library headers
assert.h
ctype.h
errno.h
float.h
limits.h
locale.h
math.h
setjmp.h
signal.h
stdarg.h
stddef.h
stdio.h
string.h
stdlib.h
time.h

stdio.h, which stands for "standard input-output header," is the header in the C standard library for the C programming language which contains macro definitions, constants, and declarations of functions and types used for various standard input and output operations. C++ also has its own implementation of the functions from C for compatibility reasons, which are declared in the header cstdio.

Functions declared in stdio.h are extremely popular, since as a part of the C standard library, they are guaranteed to work on any platform which supports C. Applications on a particular platform might, however, have reasons to use the platform's I/O routines, rather than the stdio.h routines.

Contents 1 Example usage 2 Member functions 3 Member constants 4 Member variables 5 Member Types

[edit] Example usage

All functions in C and its derivatives are declared in from header files. Thus, programmers have to include the stdio.h header into the source code to utilize the functions declared there.

 #include <stdio.h>

 int main(void)
 {
   int ch;

   while ((ch = getchar()) != EOF)
     putchar(ch);
   putchar('\n');
   
   return 0;
 }

The above program reads all input from the standard input and echo it onto the standard output, line by line.

[edit] Member functions

Functions declared in stdio.h can generally be divided into two categories: the functions for file manipulation and the functions for input-output manipulation.

Name	Notes
File manipulation functions
fclose	closes a file associated with the FILE * value passed to it
fopen, freopen, fdopen	opens a file for certain types of reading or writing
remove	removes a file (deletes it)
rename	renames a file
rewind	acts as if fseek(stream, 0L, SEEK_SET) was called for the stream passed, and then its error indicator cleared
tmpfile	creates and open a temporary file, which is deleted when closed with fclose()
Input-output manipulation functions
clearerr	clears end-of-file and error indicators for a given stream
feof	checks whether an end-of-file indicator has been set for a given stream
ferror	checks whether an error indicator has been set for a given stream
fflush	forces any pending buffered output to be written to the file associated with a given stream
fgetpos	stores the file position indicator of the stream associated by its first argument (a FILE *) to its second argument (a fpos_t *)
fgetc	returns one character from a file
fgets	gets a string from the file (ends at newline or null character)
fputc	writes one character to a file
fputs	writes a string to a file
ftell	returns a file-position indicator which can then be passed to fseek
fseek	seeks through a file
fsetpos	sets the file position indicator of a stream associated by its first argument (a FILE *) as stored in its second argument (a fpos_t *)
fread	reads different sized data from a file
fwrite	writes different sized data to a file
getc	reads and returns a character from a given stream and advances the file position indicator; it is allowed to be a macro with the same effects as fgetc, except that it may evaluate the stream more than once
getchar	has the same effects as getc(stdin)
gets	reads characters from stdin until a newline is encountered and stores them in its only argument
printf, fprintf, sprintf, snprintf	used to print to stdout
vprintf	also used to print to stdout
perror	writes an error message to stderr
putc	writes and returns a character to a stream and advances the file position indicator for it; it is allowed to be a macro with the same effects as fputc, except that it may evaluate the stream more than once
putchar, fputchar	has the same effects as putc(stdout)
scanf, fscanf, sscanf	used to input from stdin
vfscanf, vscanf, vsscanf	also used to input from stdin
setbuf
setvbuf	sets the buffering mode for a given stream
tmpnam	creates a temporary filename and stores it in its first argument (a char *)
ungetc	pushes a character back onto a stream
puts	outputs a character string to stdout

[edit] Member constants

Constants defined in the stdio.h header include:

Name	Notes
EOF	a negative integer of type int used to indicate end-of-file conditions.
BUFSIZ	an integer which is the size of the buffer used by the setbuf() function.
FILENAME_MAX	the size of a char array which is large enough to store the name of any file that can be opened.
FOPEN_MAX	the number of files that may be open simultaneously. Will be at least 8.
_IOFBF	an abbreviation for "input/output fully buffered"; it is an integer which may be passed to the setvbuf() function to request block buffered input and output for an open stream.
_IOLBF	an abbreviation for "input/output line buffered"; it is an integer which may be passed to the setvbuf() function to request line buffered input and output for an open stream.
_IONBF	an abbreviation for "input/output not buffered"; it is an integer which may be passed to the setvbuf() function to request unbuffered input and output for an open stream.
L_tmpnam	the size of a char array which is large enough to store a temporary filename generated by the tmpnam() function.
NULL	a macro expanding to the null pointer constant; that is, a constant representing a pointer value which is guaranteed not to be a valid address of an object in memory.
SEEK_CUR	an integer which may be passed to the fseek() function to request positioning relative to the current file position.
SEEK_END	an integer which may be passed to the fseek() function to request positioning relative to the end of the file.
SEEK_SET	an integer which may be passed to the fseek() function to request positioning relative to the beginning of the file.
TMP_MAX	the maximum number of unique filenames generable by the tmpnam() function. Will be at least 25.

[edit] Member variables

Variables defined in the stdio.h header include:

Name	Notes
stdin	a pointer to FILE which refers to the standard input stream, usually a keyboard.
stdout	a pointer to FILE which refers to the standard output stream, usually a display terminal.
stderr	a pointer to FILE which refers to the standard error stream, often a display terminal.

[edit] Member Types

Data types defined in the stdio.h header include:

• FILE - a structure containing the information about a file or text stream needed to perform input or output operations on it, including:
  • the current stream position
  • an end-of-file indicator
  • an error indicator
  • a pointer to the stream's buffer, if applicable
• fpos_t - a non-array type capable of uniquely identifying the position of every byte in a file.
• size_t - an unsigned integer type which is the type of the result of the sizeof operator.