Stop using fscanf to read text files. It’s a trap. Unless your data is perfectly formatted down to the last whitespace, fscanf will choke, misalign, and leave you debugging a nightmare. The reliable path? Open with r mode, use fgets to grab entire lines, and parse the pieces you need afterward.
Here is the straightforward way to read a file and dump its contents to the screen without crashing your system.
The logic here is deceptively simple. fgets reads a line, up to 1,000 characters in this buffer, and returns NULL only when it hits the end-of-file marker. It prints directly to stdout via printf. Notice the lack of \n in the printf format string? That’s intentional. fgets automatically appends the newline character to the end of the string it reads. If you add your own \n, you get double spacing. More importantly, if a line is longer than 1,000 characters, fgets won’t add the newline. You can detect this incomplete read by checking for that missing \n, a handy trick if you’re dealing with malformed data.
“Use fgets to read in each line and then parse out the pieces you need.”
There is one critical error that trips up even seasoned developers. Do not typo fclose as close. The compiler won’t catch it. The close function exists, and for small scripts that open and close a file just once or twice, it might seem to work fine. It’s a lie.
If you run this inside a loop, close fails to properly release the underlying file resources. Eventually, your program runs out of available file handles or memory space and crashes hard. fclose is the only correct way to shut the door. close is a shortcut that leads to a brick. Stick to the standard library. Keep your buffers checked. Don’t let a typo eat your memory.
