Thread: Trouble printing an array of chars

I am having trouble printing a sentence backwards the second time around through my loop without it printing the null values of the array. Is there anyway to get rid of the <NULL> that prints (for each word in the previous sentence) after each new sentence? Thanks. Here is my code:

Code:

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

  void tokenThis();
  int i;
  int j = 0;
  char *tokens[100];
  char *tokenPtr;
  char string[100];
  
   
 int main ()
 {
	 int choice;

	 printf("Enter 1 to exit or enter a sentence to be tokenized:\n");
	 scanf_s("%d",&choice);
	 while(choice!=1)
	 {
      
      gets(string);//get the string
      tokenThis();//call function to tokenize sentence
      printf("\n\n\n");
      memset(&tokens[0], 0, sizeof(tokens)); 
      memset(&string[0], 0, sizeof(string));
      printf("\nEnter a sentence to be tokenized or enter 1 to exit:\n");
	  scanf_s("%d",&choice);	 
	 }//end while
   return 0;

 }//end of main

 void tokenThis()
 { // Get the first part
    tokenPtr = strtok (string, " ");
 
   // Get all following parts
   //
   while (tokenPtr)
   {
   // Store a word into array

     tokens [j++] = tokenPtr;
 
     // Pick next word (NULL token will stop the loop)
     
     tokenPtr = strtok (NULL, " ");
   }
 
   // Print all parts in reverse order
   
   printf ("\n\nThis is the sentence reversed:\n");
   for (i = j - 1; i >= 0; i--)
   {
     printf ("%s ", tokens [i]);
  
   }
 }//end of tokenThis method

This is due to two things:
1. A simple logical error (not re-initializing j to zero every time you run tokenThis)
2. You memset tokens and string after the first tokenString, making everything null.

But perhaps it is better to use this as an opportunity to point out that global variables are generally a bad idea. Since I'm guessing you're kinda new to programming or C, I will say flat out "you should never use global variables".

Make all variables local to the appropriate function, and pass them into other functions as needed. Since j is only used in tokenThis, declare it inside that function. string and tokens are needed in main, which calls tokenThis, so declare them in main and pass them to tokenThis, etc.

Oh yeah, and two notes on your input gathering:
1. Don't use gets, since it doesn't have a length limit and thus allows for easy buffer overflows (especially if somebody types a sentences from a Melville novel into your program). Use fgets instead.
2. gets and fgets put the newline/enter that was read as the last character in the string. Trim this to avoid the new line in the middle of your reversed sentence.

Thank you. I got rid of my global variables and placed them in the appropriate functions. In doing so, I was able to cut out using memset alltogether and everything works fine
As far as fgets, when I use it I cannot figure out how to get rid of the newline that appears after the first printed word in reverse order.

@ppta: Take Quzah's comment as a lesson to always double check the advice you're given. Seems I was a bit off in my description of gets and fgets (done from memory, shame on me). Check MSDN, since it looks like you're programming on Windows.

As for the newline, remember that a "string" in C is basically an array of characters. So if your string is "hello", you have an array like {'h', 'e', 'l', 'l', 'o', '\0'} (null terminator). Index 0 would contain 'h', index 1 'e', etc. If there was a terminating new line, it would look like {'h', 'e', 'l', 'l', 'o', '\n', '\0'}. The newline at index 5 or wherever, if it exists, needs to be replaced with a '\0' character.

Code:

int last;
...
last = strlen(string);
if ('\0' == string[last]) {
    string[last] = '\0';
}

You should do this before your call to tokenThisk.

@Quzah: Thanks for that catch. I guess since I never use gets, I didn't think about the subtler differences. Any idea why there would be a difference in the way they handle new lines?

Don't you mean.

Code:

int last;
...
last = strlen(string)-1;
if ('\n' == string[last]) {
    string[last] = '\0';
}

D'oh! I'm failing all over today. Yeah, that's what I meant.