scanf or gets?

[00Sven]

I have been reading through a ton of tutorials trying to learn C programming. I have read in some places that scanf is bad and shouldn't be used if possible and other places that gets is worse than scanf. Which should I be using and if it depends when shoulld I use which?
~Sven

[dwks]

Use neither. fgets() is the best. See the FAQ.

Why gets() is bad: http://faq.cprogramming.com/cgi-bin/...&id=1043284351
Why fgets() is good: http://faq.cprogramming.com/cgi-bin/...&id=1043284385

scanf("%s", s) is bad because it stops at spaces, among other things.

[00Sven]

What do I put where the file pointer goes in fgets then?
~Sven

[dwks]

#include <string.h>  /* for strchr */

char s[SOME_SIZE], *p;
fgets(s, sizeof(s), stdin);
/* or sizeof s, or SOME_SIZE */
/* now you have a line, but it's newline terminated */
if((p = strchr(s, '\n'))) *p = 0;
/* now you have what you want */
printf("Hello, %s!\n", s);

I often use BUFSIZ for SOMESIZE. It's at least 512 and defined in <stdio.h>.

[dwks]

Read my second FAQ link (you might have caught my post before I edited it). This is the sample program provided:

#include <stdio.h> 
#include <string.h> 

int main()
{
  char buf[BUFSIZ];
  char *p;
  
  printf ("Please enter a line of text, max %d characters\n", sizeof(buf));
  
  if (fgets(buf, sizeof(buf), stdin) != NULL)
  {
    printf ("Thank you, you entered >%s<\n", buf);
    
    /*
     *  Now test for, and remove that newline character
     */
    if ((p = strchr(buf, '\n')) != NULL)
      *p = '\0';
      
    printf ("And now it's >%s<\n", buf);
  }
  
  return 0;
}


/*
 Program output:

Please enter a line of text, max 512 characters
this is a test
Thank you, you entered >this is a test
<
And now it's >this is a test<
*/

[Micko]

You should read
this

Prelude is cerainly master of the universe, too bad she's not with us anymore...

[dwks]

She isn't?