C PROGRAM TO DISPLAY TYPE OF A FILE

Hi Friends,

This is my C program to check the type of a file in UNIX system. Before going to program, have a look on what actually a 'type' means in UNIX system. A file may be one of the  following types :

1. Regular File  : It may be either a text file or a binary file.
2. Directory File : These are the files that can store other files (like file folder we use) so that users can organise their files into some hierarchical manner.!!)
3. Character Device File : It refers to a physical device that transmits data in a character-based manner. (like printer, modems, consoles),
4. Block Device File : Similar to character device file, but it can transmit a block  of data at a time.
5. FIFO FILE : A special pipe device file which furnishes a temporary buffer for 2 or more processes to communicate (by writing to / reading data from buffer).

Note: A single device can have both block and character device files representing them for different access methods.Consider F be a character device file on its creation. But F can be used by a hard disk to bulk/ non-blocking data transfer between a process and the disk.

         Here is the complete program. . .

TYPECHECK.C 

 /*
PROGRAM NAME: TYPECHECK.C
AIM : TO READ A FILE NAME AND DISPLAY IT'S TYPE
DATE : 07/31/2011
*/

  #include<stdio.h>                                                                           
  #include<sys/stat.h>                                          
                                                                             
  main ()
 {   
    char file_name[20];
    struct stat p;
    printf("\nEnter filename :  ");
    scanf("%s",file_name);
    stat(file_name,&p);
    printf("\a\n%s is a ",file_name); 
    if(S_ISREG(p.st_mode))
    printf("regular file");
     else if(S_ISDIR(p.st_mode))
     printf("directory file");

     else if(S_ISCHR(p.st_mode))
     printf("character file");
     else if(S_ISBLK(p.st_mode))
     printf("block file");
      else if(S_ISFIFO(p.st_mode))
      printf("FIFO file");
      else
      printf("Unknown type file or not found..!!");
      getch();
     

 }                   



Posted in: UNIX PROGRAMS