Don't know if this is a struct, a loop, or an fgets issue.

[figarojones]

I am currently a student learning c, and I had to make a struct loop to collect info for 10 customers.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#define NAME_LEN 10


int main() {

    typedef struct
    {
        char firstName[30];
        char lastName[30];
        char street[35];
        char city[20];
        char state[3];
        int zip [15];
        char phone[15];
        int accountId[40];
    } Customer;

    int myIntArray[NAME_LEN] = {0};
    Customer custArray[NAME_LEN];
    int i = 0;

    for(i = 0; i < NAME_LEN; ++i)
    {
        printf("Enter Information for Customer %d\n", i + 1);
        printf ("First Name: ");
        fgets (custArray[i].firstName, 30, stdin);
        printf ("Last Name: ");
        fgets (custArray[i].lastName, 30, stdin);
        printf ("Address: ");
        fgets (custArray[i].street, 35, stdin);
        printf ("City: ");
        fgets (custArray[i].city, 20, stdin);
        printf ("State Code (ex. CO for Colorado, OR for Oregon): ");
        fgets (custArray[i].state, 3, stdin);
        printf ("Zip Code: ");
        fgets(custArray[i].zip, 15, stdin);
        printf("Phone Number: ");
        fgets (custArray[i].phone, 15, stdin);
        printf("Account Number: ");
        fgets (custArray[i].accountId, 40, stdin);
    }
    return(0);
}

It mostly works, but I'm having a really weird issue. If I enter more than a single character in the "State Code (ex. CO for Colorado, OR for Oregon): " entry, the next thing that pops up is

Zip Code: Phone Number:

It works fine if I just press enter or enter a single character, but not 2+. I realize I can just increase the array size to 4, but I'd like to know why this is happening. Shouldn't an array of 3 be capable of holding the two characters and the '\n'?

[christop]

Your "state" structure member has space for only 3 characters. Two of those are needed for the newline character (if present) and null terminator. So you can fit only a single character, or two characters if a newline is not present.

Edit: hmm, maybe I should clarify a bit. When fgets reads two characters from stdin, it stops reading. The next fgets reads the newline from stdin, prematurely ending that string.

[figarojones]

Ahhhhh, I forgot about a space for the '/0' as well. Silly me!

Thank you! I have to say, this forum has been a lifesaver.