# V2556\. MISRA\. Use of a pointer to FILE when the associated stream has already been closed\.

This diagnostic rule is based on the software development guidelines developed by [MISRA](https://www.misra.org.uk/) \(Motor Industry Software Reliability Association\)\.

This rule applies only to C\. Using a pointer to the standard type 'FILE' after the associated stream has been already closed may lead to errors because that object will be having an undefined state\.

Example of non\-compliant code: 

```cpp
FILE* f = fopen("/path/to/file.log", "w");
if (f == NULL) { .... }
fprintf(f, "....");

if (....) // something went wrong
{
  fclose(f);
  fprintf(f, "...."); // Print log information
                      // after stream has been released.
}
```