Thread: Retarded (most likely) question about strings.

Howdy. I'm having a little difficulty with strings, so hopefully somebody here can steer me in the right direction

Anyways, lets say I create a string:

Code:

char str[500];

Now, lets say I need to store user input in this string, and go about it by using getchar(), and placing each character individually in the array. Now, I know that in order to be able to use this array as a string, it needs to contain '\0' at the end of the string. However, what exactly is the end of the string?

For example, if 150 characters end up getting placed in the array. Is the end of the string considered to be right after the 150th character, or is the end of the string at location str[499]?

If the former is true, I suppose it would be easy enough to place the null character right after you finish reading input. But if the latter is true, I figure it would be easiest to just initialize the entire array as null right off the bat. If so, how could you do that?

Can you initialize it when you create it by going:

Code:

char str[500] = {'\0'};

Since you only provide one character, would it set the rest of the array to the same character? If not, would you have to create a seperate function to loop through each element and set it to null?

I'm not sure if I'm complicating this too much or not, but it's confusing me substantially. Thanks for any help!

char str[500]; doesn't create a string, it creates an array of 500 chars. It only becomes a string when it is terminated by a null. In answer to your first question, the end of the string is straight after the last character you want to be in the string.

In answer to your second question, yes, you can initialise it with

Code:

char str[500] = {'\0'};

If you initialise any elements of an array, the rest are treated as though they are initialised to 0.

199, because as I said above, if any elements are initialised in an array, the rest will be set to 0.

Actually it will be 'H', 'o', 't', '\0', scanf will append the \0 but will only read until the first whitespace character it finds.

Haha. Oh man, forgot about that. Don't I look silly now

Sorry for the stupid questions. Thanks though

Originally Posted by nonpuz

Actually it will be 'H', 'o', 't', '\0', scanf will append the \0 but will only read until the first whitespace character it finds.

That's true if you use %s, but:

Code:

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void)
{
        char foo[201];

        scanf("%200[^\n]", foo);
        printf("foo is \"%s\"\n", foo);

        return 0;
}

My output:

Code:

hot mama
foo is "hot mama"

Edit:

Originally Posted by Kris

Sorry for the stupid questions

Your questions are an order of magnitude smarter than ones from a lot of new posters.

cwr: does '[^\n]' mean, ignore newline character?

It means keep reading any character until a newline is reached.

Originally Posted by cwr

That's true if you use %s, but:

Code:

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void)
{
        char foo[201];

        scanf("%200[^\n]", foo);
        printf("foo is \"%s\"\n", foo);

        return 0;
}

My output:

Code:

hot mama
foo is "hot mama"

Indeed, I was incorrect in assuming he would use %s. Although I'd wager it was the most likely case.