Fread
fread is a C standard-library function that reads a specified number of fixed-size objects from a stream into memory.
Modern C, Third Edition
fread is a C standard-library function that reads a specified number of objects from a stream into memory.
- How it is used
- Reads binary data from a stream into memory while preserving the file's byte representation.
- How deep it goes
- Defines the interface, byte-count semantics, position updates, return checking, and binary-mode restriction, but does not detail error categories.
- Examples
- Demonstrates reading the current source file into an array, comparing byte arrays, and reporting input and output counts.
- What you can do after
- Operate/configure it by opening a binary stream, supplying a destination and byte count, checking the result, and closing the stream.
Modern C
fread is the C standard library function that reads a specified number of fixed-size items from a stream into memory.
- How it is used
- Uses fread to read binary data from a stream into memory without text-oriented translation.
- How deep it goes
- Explains byte counts, file-position updates, binary-mode restrictions, and short returns, but does not develop implementation internals.
- Examples
- Uses the fread prototype and the artifact of storing and later reading a large object in its internal representation.
- What you can do after
- Operate fread for binary-file input, advance through file positions, and detect incomplete reads through return values.
Related concepts
- binary modeuses · Binary mode is a file or stream access mode that processes contents as raw bytes without text encoding, decoding, or translation.
- binary dataused by · Binary data is information represented as sequences of bytes rather than character-oriented text.
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