This project has been created as part of the 42 curriculum by vneves-c.

Get Next Line

Description

Get Next Line is a project from the 42 curriculum that introduces the concept of static variables in C. The goal is to program a function that returns a line read from a file descriptor. This function allows you to read a text file one line at a time, regardless of the BUFFER_SIZE used during reading.

Instructions

To compile the project, you need to use a C compiler (like cc) and include the necessary source files (get_next_line.c and get_next_line_utils.c). You must also define the buffer size used by the read() function using the -D BUFFER_SIZE=n flag.

Example compilation command:

cc -Wall -Wextra -Werror -D BUFFER_SIZE=42 -c get_next_line.c get_next_line_utils.c

Once compiled, repeated calls to the get_next_line(int fd) function will return consecutive lines from the specified file descriptor.

Algorithm

The implementation relies on a single static variable, stash, to preserve data read from the file descriptor across multiple calls to the function.

1. Reading: The function reads data from the file descriptor in chunks of BUFFER_SIZE bytes and appends it to the stash. This loop continues until a newline character (\n) is found within the stash or the end of the file is reached.
2. Extraction: Once a newline is detected (or EOF is reached), the function ft_extract_line isolates the string from the beginning of the stash up to and including the newline character.
3. Saving the Rest: The remaining characters in the stash (those following the newline) are preserved by the ft_save_rest function for the next time get_next_line is called.
4. Memory Management: Helper functions like ft_strjoin dynamically allocate memory for strings as they grow, and temporary variables are carefully freed to avoid memory leaks.

Resources

• man 2 read
• man 3 malloc
• man 3 free
• AI Usage: AI was used exclusively to assist in drafting this README file content.