fprintf(long) writes 8 bytes and fscanf(long) reads 6 bytes why?

Question

I'm writing a Huffman algorithm and when I write my file header, I store the length of my file because there will be some spare bits and I need to know where to stop.

This happens instead when I write the length of my file: It writes 8 bytes, but when I read, it reads only 6.

long totChar;
long size;

fprintf(outfile, "%ld", totChar);

fscanf(cmpfile, "%ld", &size);

I'm sure that works because if I add for example:

fgetc(cmpfile); \\compressed file
fgetc(cmpfile);

and then I start reading, the decompression is successful.

Answer 1

You're reading and writing characters, not binary.

For example, maybe when you write data, you write the number 57,843,249 (8 digits). But when you read data, you read 875,345 (6 digits).