Question

char *loadTextFile(const char *filename)
{
    FILE *fileh;
    char *text = 0;
    long filelength;
    if((fileh=fopen(filename,"rb"))== 0)
        printf("loadTextFile() - could not open file");
    else
    {
        fseek(fileh, 0, SEEK_END);
        filelength = ftell(fileh);
        rewind(fileh);
        text=(char *) smartmalloc((int)filelength + 1);
        fread(text,(int)filelength, 1, fileh);
        fclose(fileh);
        text[filelength]=0;
    }
    printf(text);
    return(text);
}

This function only returns partial data of a txt file. It is also inconsistent…soemtimes gives me 100 characters of the file some times 20. I don’t see anything wrong with it. Thought I might get another pair of eyes on it. Thanks.

Answer 1

Here is a slightly better version of your code. You need more error checking with the IO function calls. Also, there is the annoying long to size_t implicit conversions which I would recommend dealing with properly in production code.

char* loadTextFile(const char *filename) {
    char *text;
    long length;

    FILE *fileh = fopen(filename, "rb");
    if ( !fileh ) {
        return NULL;
    }

    fseek(fileh, 0, SEEK_END);
    length = ftell(fileh);
    rewind(fileh);

    text = malloc(length + 1);

    if ( !text ) {
        return NULL;
    }

    fread(text, 1, length, fileh);
    text[length] = 0;

    fclose(fileh);

    return text;
}

Note that, John R. Strohm is right: If your assessment of what has been read is based on what printf prints, then you are likely being misled by embedded nuls.