Read a file as byte array

Question

I have an assignment for coding a Huffman algorithm. I have the whole problem organized in my head, but I'm having some trouble with file handling.

The problem is: the algorithm is supposed to compress ANY kind of file.

My solution: read the file as a byte array, then with an int array[256]={0} for each byte, get it's int n corresponding value and increment the array[n]. If I didn't make it clear, let me know.

So, I've done lots of researching, but don't understand how to get bytes from ANY kind of file and how to handle them.

Answer 1

FILE *fileptr;
char *buffer;
long filelen;

fileptr = fopen("myfile.txt", "rb");  // Open the file in binary mode
fseek(fileptr, 0, SEEK_END);          // Jump to the end of the file
filelen = ftell(fileptr);             // Get the current byte offset in the file
rewind(fileptr);                      // Jump back to the beginning of the file

buffer = (char *)malloc(filelen * sizeof(char)); // Enough memory for the file
fread(buffer, filelen, 1, fileptr); // Read in the entire file
fclose(fileptr); // Close the file

Now you have an array of bytes containing the file's contents.