putchar vs puts

Can someone explain the difference between putchar and puts functions (also getchar and gets)?

I am thinking that putchar will only one character and
puts writes a whole string

putchar (p) is not legal and
puts(*p) is not legal

Is this correct??? If not please help me with this.

I am thinking that putchar will only one character and
puts writes a whole string

your right... the same goes for getchar and gets


putchar (p) is not legal and
puts(*p) is not legal

that depends on what p is i assume a char poiner

Example:

Code:

---


int main(void)
{
    char* p = NULL;
    char s[81] = "WOO STRING";
    p = s;
    putchar(*p); // should output 'W'
    puts(p); // should output 'WOO STRING'
    *p = getchar(); // get a single char;
    putchar(*p); // print the char we just input
    gets(s); // geta line
    puts(s); // print the line
    return 0;
}

---

Here are the different permitations to printing to the display........

Code:

---

char str[]="HELLO PEOPLE";
char *s_ptr;

for(s_ptr = str; *s_ptr; s_ptr++)
putchar(*s_ptr); /*will print single character each loop*/
printf("\n\n");
/*reset pointer*/
s_ptr = str;

puts(s_ptr); /*will print HELLO PEOPLE*/

puts(str); /*will print HELLO PEOPLE*/

printf("\n%s", s_ptr); /*will print HELLO PEOPLE*/

printf("\n%s", str); /*will print HELLO PEOPLE*/

---

putchar is used for a single character
puts is used for a string.
Remember many of the reserved words in C are short forms of words such as putchar(put character)
puts(put string)
Yilmaz
(Just finished C course)

in your example if putchar was used instead of puts:

Code:

---


char str[]="HELLO PEOPLE";
char *s_ptr;

for(s_ptr = str; *s_ptr; s_ptr++)
putchar(*s_ptr); /*will print single character each loop*/
printf("\n\n");
/*reset pointer*/
s_ptr = str;

puts(s_ptr); /*will print HELLO PEOPLE*/

puts(str); /*will print HELLO PEOPLE*/

---

putchar(s_ptr); /* will only print H */
putchar(str); /* wouldn't be legal */

:(

lets say you put the following:

Code:

---


char *ptr = "WOO STRING";

putchar (ptr);  // is not valid
putchar (*ptr);  // output :  W
puts(ptr);    // output :  WOOD STRING
puts (*ptr);  //  is not valid

---

ptr is the string RIGHT?
*ptr is pointing to first character only of the string RIGHT??

yes exactly.
though doing this ptr++ or ptr + 1 would make *ptr the second character of the string, and cause puts(ptr) to skip the first 'W'

im gonna edit in an Example to make this more clear

Code:

---


int main(void)
{
    char* p = NULL;
    char s[81] = "WOO STRING";
    p = s;
    putchar(*p); // should output 'W'
    puts(p); // should output 'WOO STRING'
    p++; // advance the pointer 'p' to s[1] or 'O' the second char in the string 's'
    putchar(*p) // should output 'O'
    puts(p) // should output 'OO STRING'
    return 0;
}

---

I ran your code 'no-one' and played with it a bit to see what output I get. I understand.

puts also automatically adds a \n (new line) at the end.
That is helpful.:)