Thread: printing an array of strings

I have this code and I just can't figure out why it won't work the way I want it to. I have a valid array of strings that I have already verified, but when I pass it to the function and it tries to print, all I get is one line of garbage.

Code:

void printlist(char star[MAX][LIM], int n)
{
    int ct = 4;

    puts(star[ct]);
    for (ct = 0; ct < n; ct++);
      puts(star[ct]);
}

the first puts() prints correctly, but the for loop just prints one line of garbage. MAX is 10 and LIM is 81, n is equal to the number of strings in the array.

EDIT: DANG I feel so stupid. I just found that stupid semicolon blatantly staring me in the face right after the for declaration. wonder why my compiler didn't give me any errors... haha i'm still learning

EDIT: DANG I feel so stupid. I just found that stupid semicolon blatantly staring me in the face right after the for declaration. wonder why my compiler didn't give me any errors... haha i'm still learning

The reason your compiler didn't say anything is because it's valid C. It's common to have a loop that does all of its work in the loop definition itself. For example, here's a common one to clear out the input stream:

Code:

while( (c = getchar( )) != '\n' && c != EOF );

What this does is read one character from the stream, check to see if it's a newline or EOF, and stop if it is. If it isn't, it continues reading. With a for loop, you may get something like:

Code:

for( ptr = array, ptr2 = array2; *ptr; *ptr2++ = *ptr++ );

This would in effect copy the contents of the first array to the second.

Quzah.