---
title: "What are file handling functions in C, and how are they used to read and write data to files?"  
description: "What are file handling functions in C, and how are they used to read and write data to files?"  
author: "Utpal Vishwas"  
published: 2023-04-21  
updated: 2023-04-24  
canonical: https://www.mindstick.com/forum/157957/what-are-file-handling-functions-in-c-and-how-are-they-used-to-read-and-write-data-to-files  
category: "C Language"  
tags: ["file", "programs"]  
reading_time: 2 minutes  

---

# What are file handling functions in C, and how are they used to read and write data to files?

What are [file handling](https://answers.mindstick.com/qa/104775/explain-file-handling-in-c) [functions](https://www.mindstick.com/forum/160140/explain-the-role-of-functions-as-a-service-faas-in-serverless-computing) in C, and how are they used to read and write [data](https://www.mindstick.com/articles/13050/salesforce-aiming-to-dominate-predictive-analytics-with-data-science) to [files](https://www.mindstick.com/articles/23302/the-importance-and-advantage-of-keeping-your-important-files-on-the-cloud)?

## Replies

### Reply by Aryan Kumar

[File](https://www.mindstick.com/articles/59/encrypting-and-decrypting-files-using-c-sharp) [handling](https://www.mindstick.com/forum/34585/file-handling) functions in C are a set of functions that allow programmers to read from and write data to files. These functions are part of the C standard library and are typically included in programs that need to interact with files on disk.

Here are some commonly used file handling functions in C:

1. **fopen()** - This function is used to open a file. It takes two arguments - the name of the file to open and the mode in which to open it (read, write, append, etc.).
2. **fclose()** - This function is used to close a file that was opened using **fopen()**.
3. **fgetc()** - This function is used to read a single character from a file.
4. **fgets()** - This function is used to read a line of text from a file.
5. **fputc()** - This function is used to write a single character to a file.
6. **fputs()** - This function is used to write a string of text to a file.
7. **fprintf()** - This function is used to write formatted text to a file, similar to the **printf()** function.
8. **fscanf()** - This function is used to read formatted text from a file, similar to the **scanf()** function.


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Original Source: https://www.mindstick.com/forum/157957/what-are-file-handling-functions-in-c-and-how-are-they-used-to-read-and-write-data-to-files

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