Thread: get single character from string

this has been giving me fits... i have been searching on c board all morning and found lots of things to try, but cant get this fixed...

Code:

    char text_send[] = ">>>This is line 1<<<";
    char text_single[] = text_send[1];

All i want to do is be able to get an individual character from the text_send array.
This is the error i get:

test635.c: In function ‘int main(int, char**)’:
test635.c:66: error: initializer fails to determine size of ‘text_single’
test635.c:66: error: invalid initializer

To try to get around this I tried:

Code:

    char text_send[] = ">>>This is line 1<<<";
    char text_single[1] = text_send[1];

Then I just get this error:
test635.c: In function ‘int main(int, char**)’:
test635.c:68: error: invalid initializer


I know that text_send is getting filled because I cant print that string out. But I cant seem to get a single character from it.

When you append [] on the end of an identifier in a declaration, you are saying "I want an array". Why would you need an array when you just want a single character?

Code:

char text_send[] = ">>>This is line 1<<<";
char text_single;  /* no [], not an array */
text_single = test_send[1];

I bet you started with a different programming language, PHP or something, where functions that return a 'character' really return a string that is one character wide.

Note that in C, a 'character' is not a string; it is just an integer with a small range that uses a small amount of memory.

Thanks!
Rashakil, that helps clear up my question
thanks cwr

Hrm, for some reason that doesn't work here;

Code:

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{

    char string[] = "randomtext";
    char string_bit;
    
    string_bit = string[1]; /* should be 'a' now, right? */
    
    printf("string = \'%s\'\n", string);
    printf("string_bit = \'%s\'\n", string_bit);

}

Gives me:

Code:

grimzy@deepdish ~/c gcc string_test.c -o string_test
grimzy@deepdish ~/c ./string_test 
string = 'randomtext'
Segmentation fault
grimzy@deepdish ~/c

Any ideas?

Ah, ofcourse!

Thanks man