Writing to files in C - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Writing to files

📖 Scenario: Imagine you want to save a list of your favorite fruits to a file on your computer so you can look at it later or share it with friends.

🎯 Goal: You will write a simple C program that creates a file and writes a list of fruits into it, one fruit per line.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create an array of strings with exact fruit names

Open a file for writing with the exact filename

Write each fruit to the file on its own line

Close the file properly

Print a confirmation message after writing

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Saving data to files is common in many programs, like saving user preferences, logs, or reports.

💼 Career

Understanding file writing is essential for software developers working on data storage, configuration files, or any program that needs to save information.

1

Create the fruit list

Create a string array called fruits with these exact entries: "Apple", "Banana", "Cherry", "Date", "Elderberry".

C

# Create the array of fruits
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use char *fruits[] = { ... }; to create the array of fruit names.

2

Open the file for writing

Add a variable called file of type FILE * and open a file named "fruits.txt" for writing using fopen.

C

#include 

char *fruits[] = {"Apple", "Banana", "Cherry", "Date", "Elderberry"};

// Open the file "fruits.txt" for writing
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use FILE *file = fopen("fruits.txt", "w"); to open the file for writing.

3

Write fruits to the file

Use a for loop with an integer variable i from 0 to 4 to write each fruit from fruits[i] to the file using fprintf, adding a newline after each fruit.

C

#include 

char *fruits[] = {"Apple", "Banana", "Cherry", "Date", "Elderberry"};

int main() {
    FILE *file = fopen("fruits.txt", "w");
    if (file == NULL) {
        printf("Error opening file.\n");
        return 1;
    }

    // Write each fruit to the file
    // Your code here

Need a hint?

Use for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) and inside the loop fprintf(file, "%s\n", fruits[i]);.

4

Close the file and print confirmation

Close the file using fclose(file) and then print "Fruits saved to fruits.txt" using printf. End the main function with return 0;.

C

#include 

char *fruits[] = {"Apple", "Banana", "Cherry", "Date", "Elderberry"};

int main() {
    FILE *file = fopen("fruits.txt", "w");
    if (file == NULL) {
        printf("Error opening file.\n");
        return 1;
    }

    for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
        fprintf(file, "%s\n", fruits[i]);
    }

    // Close the file and print confirmation
    // Your code here

Need a hint?

Use fclose(file); to close the file and printf("Fruits saved to fruits.txt\n"); to print the message.