fprintf c

Explanation of fprintf in C

The fprintf function in C is used to write formatted output to a file stream. It is similar to the printf function, but instead of printing to the console, it writes the output to a file. The general syntax of the fprintf function is as follows:

int fprintf(FILE stream, const char format, ...);
  • stream: A pointer to the file stream where the output will be written.
  • format: A string that specifies the format of the output.
  • ...: Additional arguments that correspond to the format specifiers in the format string.

The fprintf function returns the number of characters written to the file stream, or a negative value if an error occurs.

Here's an example usage of the fprintf function:

#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
    FILE *file = fopen("output.txt", "w");
    if (file == NULL) {
        printf("Failed to open file\n");
        return 1;
    }

    int num = 42;
    fprintf(file, "The answer is %d\n", num);

    fclose(file);
    return 0;
}

In this example, the fprintf function is used to write the string "The answer is 42" to a file named "output.txt". The %d format specifier is used to print the value of the num variable.

Please note that the example provided is a simplified demonstration and does not include error handling for brevity.