hopefully simple gets() help

**gafmo** · 06-19-2006

Good evening everybody,

I'm after a little help if you can. I'm writing a lab report (uni) which involves analyzing a C program.

A global variable is defined as:

Code:

char buffer[11];

which is then used in main in:

Code:

printf ("\nPress a Key to Start:\n");

gets(buffer,10);

I'm assuming this is just a device to get the program to start running when the user wants it to, the thing that's confusing me is what ',10' means in the gets(buffer,10).
I haven't been able to find any mention of anything like in my textbooks or around the internet, so I really hope someone can help.

Thanks in advance.

**fanoliv** · 06-19-2006

I thought the prototype for gets is char *gets(char *s)? How come you can call it like that? Are you sure your program compiles? I'd like to know what the experts on here says about this. More new things I can learn.

**Richie T** · 06-19-2006

>>gets(buffer,10);

This is wrong, gets does not take a size argument. Fanoliv gave
the correct prototype.

Shouldn't use gets in any case, its old and dangerous - see my
sig for the reasons, and also the better fgets function. If your
university is telling you to use gets you're in trouble IMO - who
knows what other bad code they're teaching.

**gafmo** · 06-19-2006

I realise gets is bad, that's the one piece of information I've been finding everywhere.

This code was written for us and given to us to use in lab. We compiled it and downloaded it to a microcontroller. Running the program would cause "Press a Key to Start:" to be displayed on the PC user interface, a key would be pressed, and the rest of the program would run fine.
As far as I could tell the whole program worked fine.

There was another program which contained

Code:

char buffer[11];

as a global variable declaration and

Code:

printf ("\nPress a Key to Start:");
gets(buffer,2);

in main, and this also appeared to work fine.

**Richie T** · 06-19-2006

The only thing I can think of is that maybe you are compiling with
a C++ compiler which has an overloaded version of gets unique
to that compiler, hence an additional parameter. In any case, it's
not the best way to wait for a keypress, a simple getchar would
suffice IMO, something like this is best though:

Code:

int ch;
printf ("Press enter to continue");

while ((ch = getchar ()) != '\n' || ch != EOF); /*in case they decide to type some junk before hitting enter!*/

**gafmo** · 06-19-2006

I reckon you're probably right about the compiler, hadn't thought of that but it seems like the most likely reason, its one I've not used before, and will probably never use again.
In the end its not a critical problem, but thanks for the help anyway

**dwks** · 06-19-2006

You probably didn't include <stdio.h>, and hence didn't have the prototype for gets(), so the compiler couldn't tell you were passing the wrong arguments to it.

**Richie T** · 06-19-2006

Hmmm, never encountered that before. I've forgotten to include
headers before, but never executed the code, always thought
it wouldn't run...

**Salem** · 06-20-2006

> confusing me is what ',10' means in the gets(buffer,10).
1. It means you didn't prototype the function, so the compiler lets you pass anything to the function. Since gets() only expects 1 parameter, anything else just wastes time and stack space.
2. gets() is the world's worst function as already noted several times. Get used to using fgets() as soon as possible.

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