get_next_line

Get_next_line() is a function which can read from a file descriptor one line at a time and store the result in dynamically allocated memory. The function is also able to read from multiple file descriptors at the same time.

🚀 Description

The get_next_line function has the following prototype:

int get_next_line(int fd, char **line)

in which fd is the file descriptor to read from and line is the adress of a string (character pointer) which get_next_line() will fill with the line read. The line variable is NULL-terminated.

Return values

1 if line is read
0 at EOF (End Of File)
-1 when an error occurs.

⚠️ Dynamically allocated memory will be stored in line, so be sure to free the variable after each call to prevent memory leaks in your program.

📜 Contents

The src folder contains the source files for the get_next_line() function as explained above. The extended_src folder contains a get_next_line() function which can read from multiple file descripters in one program.

🕹️ Example Program

#include <fcntl.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include "get_next_line.h"

int     main(void)
{
    char    *line;
    int     fd;
    int     res;

    res = 1;
    fd = open("text.txt", O_RDONLY);
    line = NULL;
    while (res == 1)
    {
        res = get_next_line(&line);
        printf("%s\n", line);
        printf("res = %d\n\n", res);
        free(line);
        line = NULL;
    }
    close(fd);
    return (0);
}

This will read all lines in the text file "text.txt".

📘 License