Functions and Character Arrays HELP!

[JamesL]

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


//char Rule1(int);
int Rule2(char);
void Display();
char input_string[100];


int main()
{ 
	
	printf("Please Enter String: ");
	
	scanf("%s", &input_string);
	
	Rule2(input_string);


	char input_string[100];


	getchar();
}




int Rule2(char* input_string) // Rule 2 function
{
	
	char AY[2]={'A','Y'};
	
		if(input_string[0] == 'A' || input_string[0] == 'a' || input_string[0] == 'E' || input_string[0] == 'e' || input_string[0] == 'I' || input_string[0] == 'i' || input_string[0] == 'O' || input_string[0] == 'o' || input_string[0] == 'U' || input_string[0] == 'u') 
			{
				strcat(input_string, AY);
				Display(); // Displays new word
			}
	}


void Display()
{
	printf("The word you enter is %s\n", input_string);
	//PigLatin=fopen("piglatin.txt", "w");
	//fprintf(PigLatin,"%s");
		//fprintf(PigLatin, "%s", input_string);


}

i get an C2143 error at the Rule2 function call in main and its driving me crazy! Please help! thanks

[dwks]

That's because the prototype for Rule2 is Rule2(char), while its definition is Rule2(char*). Notice the extra '*'. These things have to match.

A few other issues: You declare input_string as a global variable, and then you declare another variable with the same name inside main() which hides the global one. You'll definitely end up using one variable instead of the other by accident and wondering why there's no data in the array.

You should be declaring input_string inside main() before you use it (i.e. before the scanf call). Then passing it to Rule2 is fine (although you need to change the prototype to be char* instead of char as I mentioned). There's a handy function called tolower() [and also toupper()] in <ctype.h> that will turn 'A' into 'a', which you may want to use.

Also: your string AY is not null-terminated, so the strcat() will do a buffer overrun and may crash your program. Definitely declare it as

char AY[3] = {'A','Y','\0'};
char AY[3] = "AY";  // implicit \0
char AY[] = "AY";  // implicit size plus implicit \0

All those are equivalent, the last obviously being the simplest. However, you don't even need a variable if you're just strcat'ing, you can say

strcat(input_string, "AY");

Hmm... also, main should return 0. You should turn on compiler warnings, I'm sure they'll help you spot some mistakes before they get too buried. For g++/gcc just add "-Wall -Wextra" to your command line.

Sorry if that was a bit harsh/rushed... wasn't intended to be. You've actually posted some code which is more than some people do. Please feel free to ask if you have questions.

[edit] P.S. If you're feeling adventurous, switch statements or strchr() [a function in string.h] can be used to check if one character belongs to a set of characters you're interested in (e.g. vowels). Combine with tolower() for best effect. [/edit]

[hk_mp5kpdw]

This too:

printf("Please Enter String: ");
     
scanf("%s", &input_string);

In this context, the & is not needed. The array name by itself is sufficient and is treated as a char pointer so you don't need the address-of operator to turn it into one.

[JamesL]

Thanks for the help guys! This bit of code was copy and pasted from my project which was open on another window of visual studio so things like the return 0 i miss :P