C: lseek() related question.
- by Andrei Ciobanu
I want to write some bogus text in a file ("helloworld" text in a file called helloworld), but not starting from the beginning. I was thinking to lseek() function.
If I use the following code:
#include <unistd.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#define fname "helloworld"
#define buf_size 16
int main(){
char buffer[buf_size];
int fildes,
nbytes;
off_t ret;
fildes = open(fname, O_CREAT | O_TRUNC | O_WRONLY, S_IRUSR | S_IWUSR);
if(fildes < 0){
printf("\nCannot create file + trunc file.\n");
}
//modify offset
if((ret = lseek(fildes, (off_t) 10, SEEK_END)) < (off_t) 0){
fprintf(stdout, "\nCannot modify offset.\n");
}
printf("ret = %d\n", (int)ret);
if(write(fildes, fname, buf_size) < 0){
fprintf(stdout, "\nWrite failed.\n");
}
close(fildes);
return (0);
}
, it compiles well and it runs without any apparent errors.
Still if i :
cat helloworld
The output is not what I expected, but:
helloworld
Can
Where is "Can" comming from, and where are my empty spaces ?
Should i expect for "zeros" instead of spaces ? If i try to open helloworld with gedit, an error occurs, complaining that the file character encoding is unknown.
