if statement only works once and only reads the first line

[autumn plank]

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
    FILE *file;

    char line_text[100];

    int user_line= 0;

    scanf("%d", &user_line);
    
    file = fopen("words.txt", "r");
    
    for(int i = 1; i <= user_line;i++)
    {
        
        if((i = user_line))
        
        {
            
            fgets(line_text, 100 , file);
            
            printf("%s", line_text);
            
        }
    
    }

    fclose(file);

  return 0;

}```
in this code, the only problem is the for loop 
the if statement doesn't do anything as it runs once and that's it 
but IDK how to make an if statement affect what line to read first

[cyan fiber]

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[vocal lance]

if statement runs once becuase you have (i = user_line) rather than (i == user_line)

= is assignment

== is comparison

in c assignment is an expression

so you can accidentally write it inside the if

its a common bug

what happens here is that you go into the first loop iteration, you assign i with user_line, it increments i, it does the loop check: i <= user_line
well i is now user_line + 1 and so user_line + 1 <= user_line if false

so it exits the loop in the second iteration

[autumn plank]

I know I just need help with a new if statement that can help me with that

[vocal lance]

I told you

= is for assignment

== is for comparison

[autumn plank]

still does that the issue is that it runs once and doesn't affect the amount of lines read

[vocal lance]

did you save the file and rebuild

[autumn plank]

yup

[vocal lance]

wait

wtf is the if

for(int i = 1; i <= user_line;i++)
{        
   if((i == user_line))

you want to run a loop from i <= user_line

but then you only enter the if when i == user_line

since i is counting from 1 upwards it is only equal to user_line once

so the if is only true once

[autumn plank]

yeah I know

[vocal lance]

The problem is you have fgets(line_text, 100 , file); inside the if

which means you only read 1 line

when you actually want to read lines continually, until you reach user_line

I assume

[autumn plank]

no just the line that corresponds to user_line

[vocal lance]

you can't just read 1 line

you don't know where that line is until you find all the previous end of lines

files are not organised by line they are organised by characters. The only way to find the end of a line is to find an \n character

other programming languages may seem to magically get around this

but they don't

they too read the entire file looking for \ns until they find them, and that then the next line

[autumn plank]

so can you help me on how to take out previous lines?

[vocal lance]

you just read them

fgets reads per line

so if you call fgets itll either get to the end of the line, or it will fill the buffer, or it will reach the end of the file

you can probably assume its going to read the entire line in this case, so you just call fgets continually until you reach the line you want

[autumn plank]

I know

[autumn plank]

I just need help with getting to take out the previous lines of text

[vocal lance]

that is how you take them out

you keep calling fgets

unless you want to actually remove the line

[autumn plank]

yes

I want the lines removed

[vocal lance]

then you need to modify the file

honestly the simplest solution is probably to just find the line you want, copy that into an array, then delete the old file and create a new one with only that line