Thread: writing a read_line function similar to (scanf or gets)

Code:

/*i am writing a character input function that has the following  properties
*it ignores all white space character before starting to collect input.  
*it stops reading after a white space character has been entered  *when the the '\n' character is entered it stores the character and   then adds the    
* null character.  
it leaves all other character that could not be entered and continues reading the   * them   during its next call.
 */ 
 #include  <stdio.h>  
#include   <stdlib.h>

#define MAX 100   

char name[MAX + 1]; 
int age; 
 int read_line( char str[], int n) 
{ int ch, i; 
 
while ( (ch == getchar()) != '\n' && ch != '\t && ch != EOF)
  if ( i < n && ch != ' ')
 {    if ( str[0] == ' ' ) i--;  
      str[i++] = ch;
 }
str[i] = '\n'; 
str[i + 1] = '\0';
  
printf("%s", str); 
 return i;
 }    

 int main(void)
 {     
 printf("\nThis program asks for you age and your name"); 

     printf("\nEnter you names: ");  
   read_line(name, MAX+ 2);    

   printf("\nEnter your age: ");
    age == getchar(); 

  printf(" Your name is: %s and your age %d", name, age); 
 return 0;
 }

this code ignores the first character and but it skips the next white space characters that that appear after it has started reading input. i do not know how to discard input after it is used once; and to ignore the other character that cannot enter the array.

it took me about four days to figure out how to ignore the whitespaces before the collection of input

but i thought when u dont initialise a variable , it is initialised as 0??

thanks for the encouragement @deadplanet i knew this code was pathetic.

Originally Posted by Nyah Check

but i thought when u dont initialise a variable , it is initialised as 0??

No, it's initialized to whatever value is in that area of memory at the time. Unless you use calloc(), you have to manually set or memset() the variable to zero.

Global variables are set to zero by C, if they have no other initial value. Local variables are not set to zero, unless you declare them to have that value.

but in thought getchar() return s an interger value of the input thats why i used it