No such file or directory and segmentation fault - opening a file

Question

When I give the function the file's directory ( say /home/username/filename.txt ) I get the errors:

No such file or directory Segmentation fault (core dumped)

the part of getting the name works fine, but fopen() returns NULL My function's code is:

#define L_SIZE 128
FILE* openFile()
{
    char dir[L_SIZE];

    printf("Enter the file's directory: ");

    if(fgets( dir, L_SIZE, stdin ))
    {
        printf("\nWe got the directory: %s\n",dir);
        FILE* fp;
        if ( (fp = fopen( dir, "r" )) == NULL )
        { 
            perror("An error has occured");
            return NULL;
        }
        else
        {
            return fp;
        }
    }
    else
    {
        printf("Sorry, An error has occurs.\n");
        return NULL;
    }
}

*Where* do the program crash? My guess it's in the code calling your function, and that you don't check if it returned `NULL` or not. — Some programmer dude, Nov 24 '15 at 12:11
By the way, it's important to know that [`fgets`](http://en.cppreference.com/w/c/io/fgets) will include the newline in the buffer it writes to, something you don't handle. — Some programmer dude, Nov 24 '15 at 12:12
Possible duplicate of [opendir will not accept string variable but will accept plain string](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/29839089/opendir-will-not-accept-string-variable-but-will-accept-plain-string) — Jongware, Nov 24 '15 at 12:14
Where does it crash ? I don't see any place in your program snippet where a crash could occur. — Jabberwocky, Nov 24 '15 at 12:20
@Karoly Horvath: I just tried to mention that I'm using UNIX-Like systems indirectly while giving an example. — Michael Heidelberg, Nov 24 '15 at 12:25
@MichaelHeidelberg: Surely that wasn't my point. Does that filename look like a directory to you? — Karoly Horvath, Nov 24 '15 at 12:26
@KarolyHorvath: No of course, but I just need to open a file not a directory, I had to say: the file's directory ; Thanks for pointing out to this part. — Michael Heidelberg, Nov 24 '15 at 13:04

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 24 '15 at 12:19

2

The problem is probably related to the fact that you're using fgets() to get the input: the returning path will contain the \n char.

Try removing it (as an example, with strtok(dir, "\n");) and It will work.

answered Nov 24 '15 at 12:19

n0idea

732
1
5
14

Yes thank you it really helped. or `dir[strlen(dir)-1]='\0' also works. – Michael Heidelberg Nov 24 '15 at 12:25

No such file or directory and segmentation fault - opening a file

1 Answers1