strcar keep closing my program

i have made a program, i had code that said

Code:

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void main()
{
char a[20];
char txt[20];
char final[50];

printf("please enter file name: ");
scanf("%s,a);
strcat(final , a); //with out this it works
strcat(final, txt ); //and this
file = fopen(a,"w");
fprintf(file,"%s",a);
}

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im not online with this computer so ive just writen out a similar problem, well its the same really.

the program ends its self when i add in the strcat statments. without its fine.

does anyone know why this is?

The txt[] array is not initialized. You are copying garbage around.

i no this wont work on its own, but i hanent got a memory stick to copy the actual code across, an im not online with the computer that im writing it on, i was just wondering if anyone has had a problem where when you try and use strcat it end the program where strcat is.

Code:

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char* strcat( char* dest, const char* src)

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The way the strcat function works is that it copies the string src to the end of the string dest. That is the key, it does this by first walking along the destination string until it finds a null (the end point of the destination string) and then copying the character from the source string to that point. When you call strcat the first time, strcat(final , a), final is uninitialized and the function tries to find the end of the string which is supposed to exist there. Eventually it will find a null to stop at after who knows how many bytes it has read through and then start copying the string in a. Since this location where it is copying data to is unknown, you are probably overwriting something important and your program crashes. A solution to this is to initialize first by perhaps using strcpy instead of strcat. Also, as mentioned, txt is uninitialized as well so the second call to strcat is unadvised.

I think perhaps you meant to do this:

Code:

---

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
    char a[20];
    char final[50];
    FILE * file;

    printf("please enter file name: ");
    scanf("&#37;s",a);
    strcpy(final , a);
    strcat(final,".txt");
    file = fopen(final,"w");
    fprintf(file,"%s",a);

    fclose(file);
    return 0;
}

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thanks alot, it works now, i put

Code:

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final[0]='\0';

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thanks for that explanation, very helpful.