Help with creating a string from other strings/integers

[dubya1382]

I am writing a program that will assign a unique code to a given requestor. The format will be *issuer initials (3 characters)* - *random 4-digit integer*-*date (format is last digit of year + 3-digit day of year (i.e.: 5 January 2020 = 00005))

I can create this to output to my screen using snprintf, but I need to assign it to a structure it (char).

Here is my code so far:

printf("Please enter the technician intials: ");
fgets(techInit, sizeof(techInit), stdin);
removeNL(techInit); // this is a function to remove the new line from the input

ppr = rand() % 10000;

snprintf(buf, 50, "%s-%d-%d", techInit, ppr, Julian);
printf("|%s|\n", buf); // this is just a test printf to check if it combined everything properly

I'm trying to assign the "buf" to a struct item (char) called "new->pprNum"

[Salem]

What do you mean "assign to a char"?

A char isn't going to hold a string.

[dubya1382]

I have created a struct that has a record defined as "char pprNum"

This is meant to hold the approval code for the application request (I'm creating a request form). The information inside of it will be a combination of [3 letters "dash" 4 integers "dash" 4 integers]. Would there be some other variable type that would be more appropriate (still learning)?

[Salem]

Well you need to create structure member called
char pprNum[50];

Then you can simply do
snprintf(new->pprNum, 50, "%s-%d-%d", techInit, ppr, Julian);

> The format will be *issuer initials (3 characters)* - *random 4-digit integer*-*date (format is last digit of year + 3-digit day of year (i.e.: 5 January 2020 = 00005))
If you want exactly 4 and 5 digit strings with leading zeros, then use "%04d" and "%05d" as the formats.

[dubya1382]

That worked! I guess I was just staring at the screen too long to try and look at it from a different perspective.

Thanks!