Strange behavior of Strings

Hi All,

The following code line behaves strange...Could anyone of you help in understanding this out....

Code:

char a[10];
printf("\nEnter a string:");
scanf("%s ",a);
printf("\nAccepted String is :%s",a);

I gave an extra space " " in the scanf statment after "%s".

The output behaves as follows:

Enter a String:abcdef
a
Accepted String is :abcdef


Although I press enter key after entering the string when prompted...it is waiting for me to give one more character. After entering an extra character in 2nd line, then the output is being displayed....

Kindly help me out...

Best Regards,
Shyamlal SVS.

Added to the above information....

If i remove the space in scanf statement...the program behaves normally....

It's not strange. It's just scanf. Don't pass it scan specifiers you don't plan on using.


Quzah.

Sorry Quzah...little confusing....Plz explain me in detail...

Thx inadvance

Because scanf() waits for exactly the same format as indicated in the quoted part. That's why you are required to enter one space at the end.

If you are expecting a string like

Code:

Hello my name is + blabla

You must use something like this

Code:

scanf("%s %s %s %s + %s",...);

Match each word with a %s. Now I think you have the idea!

...and by the way, while fnoyan's example

Code:

scanf("%s %s %s %s + %s",...);

is what you have to do in scanf(), it's something you should never find yourself doing in a real program.

SlyMaelstrom said
>.... you should never find yourself doing in a real program.

Sure I prefer fgets() if unformatted input will be accepted.

Hi fnoyan..

I got ur answer...but one more question is....

Although I give space/enter key(n times) ...it is waiting for one character...Until i give any character(I mean any letter/number/sp. character)..the program is not terminating.....

Just a prediction, somebody will correct me if I am wrong!

Here is a new code

Code:

#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
char a[10];
char b[10];
printf("\nEnter a string:");
scanf(" %s %s",a,b);
printf("\nAccepted String is :%s %s",a,b);
return 0;
}

There are two white soaces before and after the first char array. Use any number of white spaces after first string, scanf() treats as if there is only one white-space.

What about the white space at the begining then! scanf() simply ignores it! So, entering

Code:

[WS][WS][WS]trial[WS][WS][WS][WS]message[WS][CR]

will accept the strings "trial" and "message". All the WS (white spaces) characters will be ignored.
I think, scanf() does not thread a WS as a charater when it is the first.

It's also important to note that scanf is considered 'line buffered' input. That means nothing really happens until you hit enter.


Quzah.