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Streams facilitate a way to create a level of abstraction
between the program and an input/output device. This allows
a common method of sending and receiving data amongst the
various types of devices available. There are two types of
streams: text and binary.
Text streams are composed of lines. Each line has zero or
more characters and are terminated by a new-line character which
is the last character in a line. Conversions may occur on text
streams during input and output. Text streams consist of only
printable characters, the tab character, and the new-line
character. Spaces cannot appear before a newline character,
although it is implementation-defined whether or not reading a
text stream removes these spaces. An implementation must support
lines of up to at least 254 characters including the new-line
character.
Binary streams input and output data in an exactly 1:1 ratio.
No conversion exists and all characters may be transferred.
When a program begins, there are already three available
streams: standard input, standard output, and standard error.
Files are associated with streams and must be opened to be
used. The point of I/O within a file is determined by the file
position. When a file is opened, the file position points to the
beginning of the file unless the file is opened for an append
operation in which case the position points to the end of the
file. The file position follows read and write operations to
indicate where the next operation will occur.
When a file is closed, no more actions can be taken on it
until it is opened again. Exiting from the main function causes
all open files to be closed.
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