Initializing arrays

[bwisdom]

I have a question. If:

char s[]="abc";

works, why doesn't

char s[8];
s[]="abc";

work. My line of thinking is that they both initilize an array of a certain size and then put the string "abc" in it. What am I missing? Ill get a "parse error before ']' token" in the second code on line 2.

The reason I would want the second alternative is lets say I have conditions with which I want to apply to s[]. Depending on the condition it will house a different string(none of which are longer than the array, including \0 of course), I would then want to print s[]. How would I get something like that to work?

[Dino]

You have to use strcpy() in C (or an equivalent function). In C, you can't just assign a string to a string variable. (edit: unless you are declaring it, and then that action happens at compile time, not runtime)

[anon]

Because initializing only works where you declare things. Arrays cannot be assigned later.

So look into strcpy, to set the string contents later.