fgetc, getc

 

C

Language

Standard Library

Type support

Dynamic memory management

Error handling

Program utilities

Date and time utilities

Strings library

Algorithms

Numerics

Input/output support

Localization support

Thread support (C11)

Atomic operations (C11)

 

File input/output

Functions
File access
fopen freopen fclose fflush	fwide setbuf setvbuf
Direct input/output
fread
fwrite
Unformatted input/output
fgetc fgets fputc fputs getchar gets putchar puts ungetc	fgetwc fgetws fputwc fputws getwchar putwchar ungetwc
Formatted input/output
scanffscanfsscanf vscanfvfscanfvsscanf (C99)(C99)(C99) printffprintfsprintfsnprintf (C99) vprintfvfprintfvsprintfvsnprintf (C99)	wscanffwscanfswscanf vwscanfvfwscanfvswscanf (C99)(C99)(C99) wprintffwprintfswprintf vwprintfvfwprintfvswprintf
File positioning
ftell
fgetpos
fseek
fsetpos
rewind
Error handling
clearerr
feof
ferror
perror
Operations on files
remove
rename
tmpfile
tmpnam

 

Defined in header <stdio.h>
int fgetc( FILE *stream );
int getc( FILE *stream );

Reads the next character from the given input stream. getc() may be implemented as a macro.

Parameters

stream

-

to read the character from

Return value

The obtained character on success or EOF on failure.

If the failure has been caused by end-of-file condition, additionally sets the eof indicator (see feof()) on stream. If the failure has been caused by some other error, sets the error indicator (see ferror()) on stream.

Example

fgetc with error checking

Run this code

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
 
int main(void)
{
    FILE* tmpf = tmpfile();
    fputs("abcde\n", tmpf);
 
    rewind(tmpf);
 
    int ch;
    while ((ch=fgetc(tmpf)) != EOF)   /* read/print characters including newline */
          printf("%c", ch);
 
    /* Test reason for reaching EOF. */
    if (feof(tmpf))          /* if failure caused by end-of-file condition */
       puts("End of file reached");
    else if (ferror(tmpf))   /* if failure caused by some other error      */
         {
            perror("fgetc()");
            fprintf(stderr,"fgetc() failed in file %s at line # %d\n", __FILE__,__LINE__-9);
            exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
         }
 
    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

Output:

abcde
End of file reached

See also

gets (until C11)	reads a character string from stdin (function)
fputcputc	writes a character to a file stream (function)
ungetc	puts a character back into a file stream (function)
C++ documentation for fgetc, getc