Question on character arrays

Is it possible to do the following?

Code:

---

char s[] = " hello my name is john";

---

And then to print, not the entire sentence, but only "hello" and then on another line to print "name" and etc.

I'm not sure if this is possible since a char is an array and it stores each letter and the null character seperately. It doesn't recognize whole words.

Can this be done with sscanf maybe?

I'd make a for loop and print out a '\n' each time a space ' ' is encountered.

Nope you don't quite understand what I mean. Let me rephrase it.

I need a character array to hold about 10 words, and to have the ability to pick any of those 10 words and print them out seperately. For example if I want only 1 word out of the 10, I print only it.

I don't think an array can do that right? Actually that sounds more like a struct to me, but I need an array to do that. Heh.

I need the character array to be like a list of seperate words where I can select whichever word I want.

Well you could have an array of string literals or something:

Code:

---

char *words[] = { "hello", "my", "name", "is", "john" };

---

You could also tokenize a string and build an array of words using something like a two-dimensional array of chars.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by citizen

Well you could have an array of string literals or something:

Code:

---

char *words[] = { "hello", "my", "name", "is", "john" };

---

You could also tokenize a string and build an array of words using something like a two-dimensional array of chars.

---

Cool I didn't know you could do that. Thats what I mean. What would I use to select each seperate word? Can you give me a sample printf statement with

Code:

---

char *words[] = { "hello", "my", "name", "is", "john" };

---

Well you would use it like an array. Because the element type is a char* you can print it with the %s modifier for printf.

This just prints hello though. What If I want to print "name"? Doesn't the pointer only point to the first element of the array?

Code:

---

#include <stdio.h>

int main( void )
{
        char *words[] = { "hello", "my", "name", "is", "john" };
       


        printf("&#37;s", *words);

---

An array isn't just a pointer to the first element. The compiler actually sets aside the space for all the elements in a static array like the one we are using here. Arrays merely become pointers to the first element in pointer contexts, like when you try to pass an array to a function or access an element. The rest of the time, it is in an array context.

So hopefully that explains why *words prints the first element, because you're using an array in a pointer context. As for printing individual elements:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by citizen

Well you would use it like an array. Because the element type is a char* you can print it with the %s modifier for printf.

---

So if you wanted to print the first word, words[0], the second word is words[1], and so on until you reach the array end, words[N - 1].

Yep as you were posting this, I found a nice example of this in my book. Thanks. :)

it should be

Code:

---

const char* words[] = ...

---