swapping strings (which are stored in an array)

I am new to programming, new to the C language, and new to this forum.

My question deals with manipulating the elements of an array which store strings, (strings being an array of chars). Specifically, I want to know how to swap the contents of one element (which contains a string) with the contents of another element (which contains a string).

Say I define an array as follows:

Code:

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char stuff[2]={"Hello","World"};

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How can I swap the contents "Hello", found at stuff[0], with "World" found at stuff[1]?

I am familiar with swapping elements in an array, doing something like:

Code:

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temp=array[x];
array[x]=array[y];
array[y]=temp;

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but I have only been able to do it successfully with arrays storing integers. When I try to do it with arrays storing strings, I run into problems. I have a shallow understanding of strings in C. I don't know if I am suppose to be using pointers, if I am suppose to be loading certain libraries like <string.h>, or if I should be using some other approach I am not even considering. I've got a shallow understanding of pointers too, and I've never even used the <string.h> library before. The K&R book's appendix explains some of the things I can do with <string.h>, but I haven't been able to apply those things to my problem.

So far, strings have proved very difficult for me to manipulate. Integers seem so much friendlier in C.

It's the same basic procedure... copy to a temp, move one to the other, copy the temp back in, but you are doing it with strcpy() or wcscpy() instead of simple equals signs.

Something like this...

Code:

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char stuff[2]={"Hello","World"};

void Swap(void)
  { char temp[6];
    strcpy(temp,stuff[1]);
    strcpy(stuff[1], stuff[2]);
    strcpy(stuff[2],temp); }

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The big reason strings seem "unfriendly" in C is that C does not natively support a "string" type. A C string is an array of characters.

However, if you had

Code:

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char *stuff[2]={"Hello","World"};

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then you could swap the pointers via:

Code:

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char *temp;
temp = array[0];
array[0] = array[1];
array[1] = temp;

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