length (arrays)

Hey guys, is there a length function I could use to work out the length of some things in a char array for example if in the array it held, "john smith" and I wanted to find out how many chars are in the surname?

Thanks.

Nope.

Writing one yourself should be easy enough, though. Or you could do like all the real programmers do and use the proper std::string object. But hey, who wants to do that? Conformists suck.

Was just doing a bit of research and found strlen() couldnt this be used?

No, because that gets you the entire array's length. Which is great, but you said you want the length of part of the array. As I said, it's easy enough to implement using strlen() among a few other functions, but what's the point? There is a standard C++ string object that does all of this for you.

One day you're going to have to get over the fact that this is C++, not C.

You can of course use the strlen function to find the length of null-terminated character arrays. If you want to find the length of specific portions of that, for example the surname of "smith" in the array "john smith", then you can still use strlen but you need to use a pointer to the character after the space character (the 's' in this case)... or the original pointer plus an offset.

Code:

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char * name = "john smith";
cout << "Total length: " << strlen(name) << endl;
char * ptr = strchr(name,' ');  // Find the space character
if( ptr )
    cout << "Surname length: " << strlen(++ptr) << endl;

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Output:

Code:

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Total length: 10
Surname length: 5

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strlen() doesnt understand the concept of "surname".

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hk_mp5kpdw

You can of course use the strlen function to find the length of null-terminated character arrays. If you want to find the length of specific portions of that, for example the surname of "smith" in the array "john smith", then you can still use strlen but you need to use a pointer to the character after the space character (the 's' in this case)... or the original pointer plus an offset.

Code:

---

char * name = "john smith";
cout << "Total length: " << strlen(name) << endl;
char * ptr = strchr(name,' ');  // Find the space character
if( ptr )
    cout << "Surname length: " << strlen(++ptr) << endl;

---

Output:

Code:

---

Total length: 10
Surname length: 5

---

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Hi Thanks for your advice that is what i have to do but if in teh array there was a middle name for example "john james smith" how can this find the surname if your not sure if all people will have a middle name or not? Thanks again

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 182

Hi Thanks for your advice that is what i have to do but if in teh array there was a middle name for example "john james smith" how can this find the surname if your not sure if all people will have a middle name or not? Thanks again

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Do you live in a country where thinking is illegal? Seriously, what do you want from the guy? Should he just write the whole thing for you?

Start at the end of the array and work your way backwards until you find a ....?

If you were using string types you could use rfind(), which does exactly that.

Quote:

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strlen() doesnt understand the concept of "surname".

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What?!! This is what it says at cppreference:

Quote:

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#include <string.h>
size_t strlen( char *str, char* surname);

The strlen() function returns the length of str (determined by the number of characters before null termination). Or, if the optional second parameter is specifed, strlen() returns the length of any surname contained in str.

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Oh, 7stud, you're killing me!!! :D