search string from file and store it in struct using c

Question

i have a structure like so:

struct profile {
    char firstName[15], lastName[15];
    int age, phoneNo;
};

and i've written a code to store the text data from this structure into a text file, like so:

int main()
{
    
    FILE* fPtr;
    fPtr = fopen("profile.txt", "a");

    printf("\n\nPlease enter your details:");
    struct profile c;
    printf("\n\nEnter your first name: ");
    gets(c.firstName);
    printf("\nEnter your last name: ");
    gets(c.lastName);
    printf("\nEnter your age: ");
    scanf("%d", &c.age);
    printf("Enter your phone number: ");
    scanf("%d", &c.phoneNo);

    fprintf(fPtr, "%s#%s#%dy#%d#\n", c.firstName, c.lastName, c.age, c.phoneNo);

    fclose(fPtr);

    return 0;
}

the code above will store the data input into the struct into a text file of strings, each string is one profile, and each value is separated by a '#', like below:

John#Doe#35y#0123456789#
Mary Ann#Brown#20y#034352421#
Nicholas#McDonald#15y#0987654321#

i'd like to know if there's a way i can search for a certain name/age/phoneNo from the text file, select the entire string of the corresponding profile and put each value back into a structure as above so that i can display it? i've separate each value with a '#' so that the program can use the # to differentiate between each value when it reads from the file but i'm not sure how i can separate it when i read the data. should i use fgets ? i'm new to C so i'd appreciate it if someone could explain it me how.

Answer 1

This is not exactly what you are looking for , but it helps you start using fgets and how to search for entries(only strings now).

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#define MYFILE "profile.txt"
#define BUFFER_SIZE 50

int main()
{
    char nametoSearch[BUFFER_SIZE];
    char Names[BUFFER_SIZE];
    
    FILE* fPtr;
    if (fPtr = fopen(MYFILE, "r"))
    {
        // flag to check whether record found or not
        int fountRecord = 0;
        printf("Enter name to search : ");
        //use fgets if you are reading input with spaces like John Doe
        fgets(nametoSearch, BUFFER_SIZE, stdin);
        //remove the '\n' at the end of string 
        nametoSearch[strlen(nametoSearch)-1] = '\0';
        
        while (fgets(Names, BUFFER_SIZE, fPtr)) 
        {
            // strstr returns start address of substring in case if present
            if(strstr(Names,nametoSearch))
            {
                printf("%s\n", Names);
                fountRecord = 1;
            }
        }
        if ( !fountRecord )
            printf("%s cannot be found\n",nametoSearch);
        
        fclose(fPtr);
    }
    else
    {
        printf("file %s  cannot be opened\n", MYFILE );
    }   
    return 0;
}