Thread: Separate long string into multiple arrays

I have a program to write where a user enters up to 10 strings, ending the input with -1 to let the program know the user is finished. Then takes those strings and compares them to remove duplicates, then prints the individual strings as one entire string with each individual string separated by a white space.

My problem is with the separation of the strings. with gets() you can get one of the individual strings and store it into an array.. And the next call of gets() should pick up where the last one left off, but I don't really know the most efficient way to do so. You can easily get each individual string using a for loop but I'm not sure how to increment the arrays so that each run of the loop stores a string to a different array.

Any suggestions on how to approach it?

I think there's a terminology problem here. If I may, I will rewrite your need with the proper terms:

Originally Posted by cashmerelc

I have a program to write where a user enters up to 10 strings, ending the input with -1 to let the program know the user is finished. The program then takes those strings and compares them to each other to remove duplicates, then prints the individual strings as one contiguous string with each individual string separated by a white space.

My problem is with the separation of the strings. With gets() you can get one of the individual strings and store it into an element of the array.. And the next call of gets() should pick up where the last one left off, but I don't really know the most efficient way to do so. You can easily get each individual string using a for loop but I'm not sure how to increment the array index so that each run of the loop stores a string to a different array element.

If this is correct, then a single dimension array is all that is needed.

Todd

Yes, you are correct. I'm still getting used to the C concept of a string as an array of characters (or, I guess it's the other way around.)

Code:

char userdata[10][12] ;

would be 10 arrays of 12 bytes each. A nice little 2D array.

Todd

EDIT: and in my rewrite above, "element" would be the inner (second) arrary of 12 bytes each.

Okay, I have written out some code that puts together several small strings into one long one, but the -1 character only seems to have an effect if you happen to make the -1 the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 6th, etc string. And my duplicate elimination is not working whatsoever. Below is my incredibly long and probably unnecessary code.

Code:

        fgets(one, i, stdin);
        nl = strrchr(one, '\n');
        if (nl) *nl = '\0';
        if (atoi(one) == -1){
                printf("\n");
                return 0;
        }

        fgets(two, i, stdin);
        nl = strrchr(two, '\n');
        if (nl) *nl = '\0';
        if (two[50] == one[50]){
                two[50] = NULL;
        } else if (atoi(two) == -1){
                printf("%s \n", one);
                return 0;
        }

        fgets(three, i, stdin);
        nl = strrchr(three, '\n');
        if (nl) *nl = '\0';
        if (three[50] == two[50] || three[50] == one[50]){
                three[50] = NULL;
        } else if (atoi(three) == -1){
                printf("%s %s \n", one, two);
                return 0;
        }

        fgets(four, i, stdin);
        nl = strrchr(four, '\n');
        if (nl) *nl = '\0';
        if (four[50] == three[50] || four[50] == two[50] || four[50] == one[50]){
                four[50] = ' ';
        } else if (atoi(four) == -1){
                printf("%s %s %s \n", one, two, three);
                return 0;

        }


        fgets(five, i, stdin);
        nl = strrchr(five, '\n');
        if (nl) *nl = '\0';
        if (five[50] == four[50] || five[50] == three[50] || five[50] == two[50] || five[50] == one[50]){
                five[50] = ' ';
        } else if (atoi(five) == -1){
                printf("%s %s %s %s \n", one, two, three, four);
                return 0;

        }

        fgets(six, i, stdin);
        nl = strrchr(six, '\n');
        if (nl) *nl = '\0';
        if (six[50] == five[50] || six[50] == four[50] || six[50]== three[50] || six[50] == two[50] || six[50] ==
one[50]){
                six[50] = ' ';
        } else if (atoi(six) == -1){
                printf("%s %s %s %s %s \n", one, two, three, four, five);
                return 0;

        }


        fgets(seven, i, stdin);
        nl = strrchr(seven, '\n');
        if (nl) *nl = '\0';
        if (seven[50] == six[50] || seven[50] == five[50] || seven[50] == four[50] || seven[50] == three[50] ||
seven[50] == two[50] || seven[50] == one[50]){
                seven[50] = ' ';
        } else if (atoi(seven) == -1){
                printf("%s %s %s %s %s %s \n", one, two, three, four, five, six);
                return 0;

        }

        fgets(eight, i, stdin);
        nl = strrchr(eight, '\n');
        if (nl) *nl = '\0';
        if (eight[50] == seven[50] || eight[50] == six[50] || eight[50] == five[50] || eight[50] == four[50] ||
eight[50] == three[50] || eight[50] == two[50] || eight[50] == one[50]){
                eight[50] = ' ';
        } else if (atoi(eight) == -1){
                printf("%s %s %s %s %s %s %s \n", one, two, three, four, five, six, seven);
                return 0;

        }
        fgets(nine, i, stdin);
        nl = strrchr(nine, '\n');
        if (nl) *nl = '\0';
        if (nine[50] == eight[50] || nine[50] == seven[50] || nine[50] == six[50] ||
 nine[50] == five[50] || nine[50] == four[50] || nine[50] == three[50] || nine[50] ==
two[50] || nine[50] == one[50]){
                nine[50] = ' ';
        } else if (atoi(nine) == -1){
                printf("%s %s %s %s %s %s %s %s \n", one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight);
                return 0;

        }

        fgets(ten, i, stdin);
        nl = strrchr(ten, '\n');
        if (nl) *nl = '\0';
        if (ten[50] == nine[50] || ten[50] == eight[50] || ten[50] == seven[50] || ten[50] == six[50] || ten[50] ==
five[50] || ten[50] == four[50] || ten[50] == three[50]
|| ten[50] == two[50] || ten[50] == one[50]){
                ten[50] = NULL;
        } else if (atoi(ten) == -1){
                printf("%s %s %s %s %s %s %s %s %s \n", one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine);
                return 0;
 } else {
                printf("%s %s %s %s %s %s %s %s %s %s \n", one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten);
}

}

Also, the final printf (I thought) would just go ahead and print all ten strings, but if you just enter 10 strings without -1 as the 10th string, the program simply ends. Any ideas?