How can I initialize the I2C bus on the BeagleBone Black Rev C running Embedded Linux?

#include <linux/i2c-dev.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <sys/ioctl.h>

int main() {
    int file;
    char *bus = "/dev/i2c-1";
    if ((file = open(bus, O_RDWR)) < 0) {
        perror("Failed to open the bus");
        return 1;
    }
    return 0;
}