sscanf and string handling question

I need help using sscanf. I have googled it and have been testing this for a few days and i just cant get it right.

I have a string, lets say:

Code:

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char *line="term1=the cat&term2=M"

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I need to read "the cat" and "M" and put them in two separate strings.

I figured at first that i could divide the string in two with:

Code:

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sscanf(line, "%[^&],%[^&]", string1, string2);

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and get "term1=the cat" on string 1 and "term2=M" on string2 and use sscanf on those in turn.

I use this sscanf line with strings with a "," instead of a "&" and no "=" and it separates the words perfectly regardless of blank spaces, but i cant get it to separate this string since the space confuses it. (and me too)

Any ideas?

thanks

The space confuses nothing. The comma confuses sscanf, since you claim the line has a comma in it which it manifestly does not.

the line has no comma its just "term1=something something&term2=somethingelse"

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ursula

the line has no comma

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Yuh-huh!

Code:

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sscanf(line, "%[^&],%[^&]", string1, string2);

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See? ;)


Quzah.

i follow u, sorry. I thought i needed that.

However, it still doesnt work. it extracts the first half "term1=the cat" but it ignores string2.

You should post a small example. You do know that the ^ means "everything except...", which means that if this is your input:

"term1=something something&term2=somethingelse"

Then this is what's going to be stored in the first variable:

"term1=something something"

Because you don't actually have two & in your input string, it won't store up to the next one in the second variable.

Quzah.

post the updated sscanf()

I did know about the^ but i wasnt sure how to work with that... Heres how i solved it

Code:

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char *line="term1=something something&term2=something2";
char *string1, *string2, *x);

sscanf(line, "%[^&]&%[^&]", string1, string2); //string1="term1=something something"
                                                                  // string2="term2=something2"

sscanf(string1, "%[^=]=%[^=]",x, string1);  //string1="something something"

sscanf(string2, "term2=%s", string2);  //string2= "something2"

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Why do you have the second %[^&] in there if you only have one & in your string? That doesn't really make sense.


Quzah.

Well, ive been handling several strings with multiple &s in them. It is working like that... i guess i could also do something like

Code:

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sscanf(line, "%[^&]&%s", string1, string2);

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Here's one that works for this:

Code:

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char *line="term1=the cat&term2=M";
sscanf(line, "%*[a-z0-9]=%[a-z ]&%*[a-z0-9]=%[A-Z ]",&one,&two);

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I did test it. The * flag means ignore this match. The %[a-z] style stuff is to catch only the specified characters, notice there are spaces in there (you probably want to use %[a-zA-Z ] in the generic edition).

that worked too, thanks!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ursula

that worked too, thanks!

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All right, you're welcome. As long as you understand you are supposed to understand how that works, and not just blindly implement it ;). I prefer "reverse engineering" my comprehension from working examples, myself, so I thought that might be useful.

Your other idea for parsing this in sections is not a bad one. This looks like http form data; if so you probably can do it in one line for a few fields. But if the number of fields, etc, is many and varied it will be better to break in into a hierarchy of segments. Look into strtok().

Code:

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#include <stdio.h>

main()
{
    char *line = "term1= the cat &term2= M ";
    char one[100], two[100];
   
    if (sscanf(
            line,
            "%*[^=]="
            "%99[^&]&"
            "%*[^=]="
            "%99[^\n]",
            one,
            two
        ) != 2)
        return 1;
    printf(".%s.\n.%s.\n", one, two);
   
    return 0;
}

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here sscanf has limit and more uniform for characters, I suggest to separate line before the processing by & and then process every part with one algorithm (because it has two equal parts "%*[^=]=" and then, when it separated, it can be "%*[^=]=%99[^\n]" format string for every part of separated source line)
then you can put it in the function and so on ...

Yeah, that one works too, and is more generic I think. A nice contrast of two different methods (inclusive and ^exclusive) with my post.