C setbuf() function

Last update on September 20 2022 12:34:28 (UTC/GMT +8 hours)

C library function - setbuf()

The setbuf() function controls buffering for the specified stream if the operating system supports user-defined buffers. The stream pointer must refer to an open file before any I/O or repositioning has been done.

Syntax:

void setbuf(FILE *stream, char *buffer)

setbuf() Parameters:

Name	Description	Required /Optional
stream	Identifies an address for a file descriptor, which is an area of memory associated with an input or output stream.	Required
buffer	The system uses the buffer, which you specify, for input/output buffering instead of the default system-allocated buffer for the given stream.	Required

Return value from setbuf()

This function does not return any value.

Example: setbuf() function

The following example opens the file test.txt for writing. As a result, it calls the setbuf() function in order to create a buffer of length BUFSIZ. Strings are written to the stream using the buffer buf, which contains the string before it is flushed to the file.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
 
int main(void)
{
   char buf[BUFSIZ];
   char string[] = "C Programming.";
   FILE *stream;
 
   memset(buf,'\0',BUFSIZ);  /* initialize buf to null characters */
 
   stream = fopen("test.txt", "wb");
 
   setbuf(stream,buf);       /* set up buffer */
 
   fwrite(string, sizeof(string), 1, stream);
 
   printf("String is found in buffer now. %s\n",buf);       /* string is found in buf now */
 
   fclose(stream);           /* buffer is flushed out to myfile.dat */
}

Output:

String is found in buffer now. C Programming.

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