Yet another fgetline()

[Garrett Wollman]

Well, here is my version of the get-an-indefinite-length-string
routine.  I call it frgets, and it acts very much like gets().  I uses
malloc to get memory.  [Please note that I don't claim that it's at
all efficient, but it makes the most sense to me.  PErhaps a good
compiler can make something of it.]

#include <stdio.h>

static char *frgets_h(FILE *fp,int accum) {
  int c = fgetc(fp);
  char *retval;

  if((c == EOF)||(c == '\n')) {
    retval = malloc(accum+1);
    if(retval)
      retval[accum] = '\0';
    return(retval);
  }

  /* we didn't get an EOF or newline */
  retval = frgets_h(fp,accum+1);
  if(retval)
    retval[accum] = (char)c;  /* this may need fudging for signed chars < 0 */

  return(retval);
}

char *frgets(FILE *fp) {
  return(frgets_h(fp,0));
}

----------

Note that, if there is not enough memory available deep in the
recursion, then you lose all those characters that were read it.  Too
bad.  I think that if you can't malloc enough for a simple string,
that's probably the worst of your problems.  No doubt all the other
readers of comp.lang.c will come down from on high and condemn this.
That's too bad too.

-GAWollman


Garrett A. Wollman - wollman at emily.uvm.edu

Disclaimer:  I'm not even sure this represents *my* opinion, never
mind UVM's, EMBA's, EMBA-CF's, or indeed anyone else's.