Reading in a specific column of data from a text file in C

Question

My text file looks like this:

987 10.50   N   50
383 9.500   N   20
224 12.00   N   40

I want to read only the second column of data. How w

Answer 1

You'll need to read all the data, and discard the unneeded fields (i.e. "columns"). Format strings containing %*d are doing that.

In C, it could be something like (assuming f is a FILE* handle)

 while (!feof(f)) {
    int n=0; double x=0.0; char c[4]; int p=0;
    if (fscanf(f, " %*d %f %*[A-Z] %*d",  &x) < 1)
      break;
    do_something(x);
 }

PS. Thanks to Jerry Coffin for his comment