std::ftell

 

C++

Compiler support

Freestanding and hosted

Language

Standard library

Standard library headers

Named requirements

Feature test macros (C++20)

Language support library

Concepts library (C++20)

Metaprogramming library (C++11)

Diagnostics library

General utilities library

Strings library

Containers library

Iterators library

Ranges library (C++20)

Algorithms library

Numerics library

Localizations library

Input/output library

Filesystem library (C++17)

Regular expressions library (C++11)

Concurrency support library (C++11)

Execution support library (C++26)

Technical specifications

Symbols index

External libraries

 

Input/output library

I/O manipulators

Print functions (C++23)

C-style I/O

Buffers

basic_streambuf

basic_filebuf

basic_stringbuf

basic_spanbuf (C++23)

strstreambuf (C++98/26*)

basic_syncbuf (C++20)

Streams

Abstractions

ios_base

basic_ios

basic_istream

basic_ostream

basic_iostream

File I/O

basic_ifstream

basic_ofstream

basic_fstream

String I/O

basic_istringstream

basic_ostringstream

basic_stringstream

Array I/O

basic_ispanstream (C++23)

basic_ospanstream (C++23)

basic_spanstream (C++23)

istrstream (C++98/26*)

ostrstream (C++98/26*)

strstream (C++98/26*)

Synchronized Output

basic_osyncstream (C++20)

Types

streamoff

streamsize

fpos

Error category interface

iostream_category (C++11)

io_errc (C++11)

 

C-style I/O

Types and objects
FILE fpos_t	stdinstdoutstderr
Functions
File access fopen freopen fclose fflush fwide setbuf setvbuf Direct input/output fread fwrite Unformatted input/output fgetcgetc fgets fputcputc fputs getchar gets (until C++14) putchar puts ungetc fgetwcgetwc fgetws fputwcputwc fputws getwchar putwchar ungetwc Formatted input scanffscanfsscanf vscanfvfscanfvsscanf (C++11)(C++11)(C++11)     wscanffwscanfswscanf vwscanfvfwscanfvswscanf (C++11)(C++11)(C++11)	Formatted output printffprintfsprintfsnprintf (C++11) vprintfvfprintfvsprintfvsnprintf (C++11)     wprintffwprintfswprintf vwprintfvfwprintfvswprintf File positioning ftell fgetpos fseek fsetpos rewind Error handling clearerr feof ferror perror Operations on files remove rename tmpfile tmpnam

 

Defined in header <cstdio>
long ftell( std::FILE* stream );

Returns the current value of the file position indicator for the file stream stream.

If the stream is open in binary mode, the value obtained by this function is the number of bytes from the beginning of the file.

If the stream is open in text mode, the value returned by this function is unspecified and is only meaningful as the input to std::fseek.

Parameters

stream

-

file stream to examine

Return value

File position indicator on success or -1L if failure occurs. Also sets errno on failure.

Example

Demonstrates std::ftell() with error checking. Writes then reads a few floating-point (FP) values to/from a file.

Run this code

#include <cstdio>
#include <cstdlib>
#include <iostream>
 
// If the condition is not met then exit the program with error message.
void check(bool condition, const char* func, int line)
{
    if (condition)
        return;
    std::perror(func);
    std::cerr << func << " failed in file " << __FILE__ << " at line # " << line - 1
              << '\n';
    std::exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
 
int main()
{
    // Prepare an array of FP values.
    constexpr int SIZE {5};
    double A[SIZE] = {1.1, 2.2, 3.3, 4.4, 5.5};
 
    // Write array to a file.
    const char* fname = "/tmp/test.bin";
    FILE* file = std::fopen(fname, "wb");
    check(file != NULL, "fopen()", __LINE__);
 
    const int write_count = std::fwrite(A, sizeof(double), SIZE, file);
    check(write_count == SIZE, "fwrite()", __LINE__);
 
    std::fclose(file);
 
    // Read the FP values into array B.
    double B[SIZE];
    file = std::fopen(fname, "rb");
    check(file != NULL, "fopen()", __LINE__);
 
    long pos = std::ftell(file); // position indicator at start of file
    check(pos != -1L, "ftell()", __LINE__);
    std::cout << "pos: " << pos << '\n';
 
    const int read_count = std::fread(B, sizeof(double), 1, file); // read one FP value
    check(read_count == 1, "fread()", __LINE__);
 
    pos = std::ftell(file); // position indicator after reading one FP value
    check(pos != -1L, "ftell()", __LINE__);
    std::cout << "pos: " << pos << '\n';
    std::cout << "B[0]: " << B[0] << '\n'; // print one FP value
 
    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

Possible output:

pos: 0
pos: 8
B[0]: 1.1

See also

fgetpos	gets the file position indicator (function)
fseek	moves the file position indicator to a specific location in a file (function)
fsetpos	moves the file position indicator to a specific location in a file (function)
tellg	returns the input position indicator (public member function of std::basic_istream<CharT,Traits>)
tellp	returns the output position indicator (public member function of std::basic_ostream<CharT,Traits>)
C documentation for ftell