C Programming - Space Character Not Detected - c

Mainly a Java/Python coder here. I am coding a tokenizer for an assignment. (I explicitly cannot use strtok().) The code below is meant to separate the file text into lexemes (aka words and notable characters).
char inText[256];
fgets(inText, 256, inf);
char lexemes[256][256];
int x = 0;
char string[256] = "\0";
for(int i=0; inText[i] != '\0'; i++)
{
char delims[] = " (){}";
char token = inText[i];
if(strstr(delims, &inText[i]) != NULL)
{
if(inText[i] == ' ') // <-- Problem Code
{
if(strlen(string) > 0)
{
strcpy(lexemes[x], string);
x++;
strcpy(string, "\0");
(*numLex)++;
}
}
else if(inText[i] == '(')
{
if(strlen(string) > 0)
{
strcpy(lexemes[x], string);
x++;
strcpy(string, "\0");
(*numLex)++;
}
strcpy(lexemes[x], &token);
x++;
(*numLex)++;
}
else
{
strcpy(lexemes[x], &token);
x++;
(*numLex)++;
}
}
else
{
strcat(string, (char[2]){token});
}
}
For some odd reason, my code cannot recognize the space character as ' ', as 32, or by using isspace(). There are no error messages, and I have confirmed that the code is reaching the space in the text.
This is driving me insane. Does anyone have any idea what is happening here?

You are using the function strstr incorrectly.
if(strstr(delims, &inText[i]) != NULL)
the function searches exactly the string pointed to by the pointer expression &inText[i] in the string " (){}".
Instead you need to use another function that is strcspn.
Something like
i = strcspn( &inText[i], delims );
or you can introduce another variable like for example
size_t n = strcspn( &inText[i], delims );
depending on the logic of the processing you are going to follow.
Or more probably you need to use the function strchr like
if(strchr( delims, inText[i]) != NULL)

Related

String Palindrome function that doesn't work as intended in C [duplicate]

What is the easiest and most efficient way to remove spaces from a string in C?
Easiest and most efficient don't usually go together…
Here's a possible solution for in-place removal:
void remove_spaces(char* s) {
char* d = s;
do {
while (*d == ' ') {
++d;
}
} while (*s++ = *d++);
}
Here's a very compact, but entirely correct version:
do while(isspace(*s)) s++; while(*d++ = *s++);
And here, just for my amusement, are code-golfed versions that aren't entirely correct, and get commenters upset.
If you can risk some undefined behavior, and never have empty strings, you can get rid of the body:
while(*(d+=!isspace(*s++)) = *s);
Heck, if by space you mean just space character:
while(*(d+=*s++!=' ')=*s);
Don't use that in production :)
As we can see from the answers posted, this is surprisingly not a trivial task. When faced with a task like this, it would seem that many programmers choose to throw common sense out the window, in order to produce the most obscure snippet they possibly can come up with.
Things to consider:
You will want to make a copy of the string, with spaces removed. Modifying the passed string is bad practice, it may be a string literal. Also, there are sometimes benefits of treating strings as immutable objects.
You cannot assume that the source string is not empty. It may contain nothing but a single null termination character.
The destination buffer can contain any uninitialized garbage when the function is called. Checking it for null termination doesn't make any sense.
Source code documentation should state that the destination buffer needs to be large enough to contain the trimmed string. Easiest way to do so is to make it as large as the untrimmed string.
The destination buffer needs to hold a null terminated string with no spaces when the function is done.
Consider if you wish to remove all white space characters or just spaces ' '.
C programming isn't a competition over who can squeeze in as many operators on a single line as possible. It is rather the opposite, a good C program contains readable code (always the single-most important quality) without sacrificing program efficiency (somewhat important).
For this reason, you get no bonus points for hiding the insertion of null termination of the destination string, by letting it be part of the copying code. Instead, make the null termination insertion explicit, to show that you haven't just managed to get it right by accident.
What I would do:
void remove_spaces (char* restrict str_trimmed, const char* restrict str_untrimmed)
{
while (*str_untrimmed != '\0')
{
if(!isspace(*str_untrimmed))
{
*str_trimmed = *str_untrimmed;
str_trimmed++;
}
str_untrimmed++;
}
*str_trimmed = '\0';
}
In this code, the source string "str_untrimmed" is left untouched, which is guaranteed by using proper const correctness. It does not crash if the source string contains nothing but a null termination. It always null terminates the destination string.
Memory allocation is left to the caller. The algorithm should only focus on doing its intended work. It removes all white spaces.
There are no subtle tricks in the code. It does not try to squeeze in as many operators as possible on a single line. It will make a very poor candidate for the IOCCC. Yet it will yield pretty much the same machine code as the more obscure one-liner versions.
When copying something, you can however optimize a bit by declaring both pointers as restrict, which is a contract between the programmer and the compiler, where the programmer guarantees that the destination and source are not the same address. This allows more efficient optimization, since the compiler can then copy straight from source to destination without temporary memory in between.
In C, you can replace some strings in-place, for example a string returned by strdup():
char *str = strdup(" a b c ");
char *write = str, *read = str;
do {
if (*read != ' ')
*write++ = *read;
} while (*read++);
printf("%s\n", str);
Other strings are read-only, for example those declared in-code. You'd have to copy those to a newly allocated area of memory and fill the copy by skipping the spaces:
char *oldstr = " a b c ";
char *newstr = malloc(strlen(oldstr)+1);
char *np = newstr, *op = oldstr;
do {
if (*op != ' ')
*np++ = *op;
} while (*op++);
printf("%s\n", newstr);
You can see why people invented other languages ;)
#include <ctype>
char * remove_spaces(char * source, char * target)
{
while(*source++ && *target)
{
if (!isspace(*source))
*target++ = *source;
}
return target;
}
Notes;
This doesn't handle Unicode.
if you are still interested, this function removes spaces from the beginning of the string, and I just had it working in my code:
void removeSpaces(char *str1)
{
char *str2;
str2=str1;
while (*str2==' ') str2++;
if (str2!=str1) memmove(str1,str2,strlen(str2)+1);
}
#include<stdio.h>
#include<string.h>
main()
{
int i=0,n;
int j=0;
char str[]=" Nar ayan singh ";
char *ptr,*ptr1;
printf("sizeof str:%ld\n",strlen(str));
while(str[i]==' ')
{
memcpy (str,str+1,strlen(str)+1);
}
printf("sizeof str:%ld\n",strlen(str));
n=strlen(str);
while(str[n]==' ' || str[n]=='\0')
n--;
str[n+1]='\0';
printf("str:%s ",str);
printf("sizeof str:%ld\n",strlen(str));
}
The easiest and most efficient way to remove spaces from a string is to simply remove the spaces from the string literal. For example, use your editor to 'find and replace' "hello world" with "helloworld", and presto!
Okay, I know that's not what you meant. Not all strings come from string literals, right? Supposing this string you want spaces removed from doesn't come from a string literal, we need to consider the source and destination of your string... We need to consider your entire algorithm, what actual problem you're trying to solve, in order to suggest the simplest and most optimal methods.
Perhaps your string comes from a file (e.g. stdin) and is bound to be written to another file (e.g. stdout). If that's the case, I would question why it ever needs to become a string in the first place. Just treat it as though it's a stream of characters, discarding the spaces as you come across them...
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void) {
for (;;) {
int c = getchar();
if (c == EOF) { break; }
if (c == ' ') { continue; }
putchar(c);
}
}
By eliminating the need for storage of a string, not only does the entire program become much, much shorter, but theoretically also much more efficient.
/* Function to remove all spaces from a given string.
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/remove-spaces-from-a-given-string/
*/
void remove_spaces(char *str)
{
int count = 0;
for (int i = 0; str[i]; i++)
if (str[i] != ' ')
str[count++] = str[i];
str[count] = '\0';
}
Code taken from zString library
/* search for character 's' */
int zstring_search_chr(char *token,char s){
if (!token || s=='\0')
return 0;
for (;*token; token++)
if (*token == s)
return 1;
return 0;
}
char *zstring_remove_chr(char *str,const char *bad) {
char *src = str , *dst = str;
/* validate input */
if (!(str && bad))
return NULL;
while(*src)
if(zstring_search_chr(bad,*src))
src++;
else
*dst++ = *src++; /* assign first, then incement */
*dst='\0';
return str;
}
Code example
Exmaple Usage
char s[]="this is a trial string to test the function.";
char *d=" .";
printf("%s\n",zstring_remove_chr(s,d));
Example Output
thisisatrialstringtotestthefunction
Have a llok at the zString code, you may find it useful
https://github.com/fnoyanisi/zString
That's the easiest I could think of (TESTED) and it works!!
char message[50];
fgets(message, 50, stdin);
for( i = 0, j = 0; i < strlen(message); i++){
message[i-j] = message[i];
if(message[i] == ' ')
j++;
}
message[i] = '\0';
Here is the simplest thing i could think of. Note that this program uses second command line argument (argv[1]) as a line to delete whitespaces from.
#include <string.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
/*The function itself with debug printing to help you trace through it.*/
char* trim(const char* str)
{
char* res = malloc(sizeof(str) + 1);
char* copy = malloc(sizeof(str) + 1);
copy = strncpy(copy, str, strlen(str) + 1);
int index = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < strlen(copy) + 1; i++) {
if (copy[i] != ' ')
{
res[index] = copy[i];
index++;
}
printf("End of iteration %d\n", i);
printf("Here is the initial line: %s\n", copy);
printf("Here is the resulting line: %s\n", res);
printf("\n");
}
return res;
}
int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
//trim function test
const char* line = argv[1];
printf("Here is the line: %s\n", line);
char* res = malloc(sizeof(line) + 1);
res = trim(line);
printf("\nAnd here is the formatted line: %s\n", res);
return 0;
}
This is implemented in micro controller and it works, it should avoid all problems and it is not a smart way of doing it, but it will work :)
void REMOVE_SYMBOL(char* string, uint8_t symbol)
{
uint32_t size = LENGHT(string); // simple string length function, made my own, since original does not work with string of size 1
uint32_t i = 0;
uint32_t k = 0;
uint32_t loop_protection = size*size; // never goes into loop that is unbrakable
while(i<size)
{
if(string[i]==symbol)
{
k = i;
while(k<size)
{
string[k]=string[k+1];
k++;
}
}
if(string[i]!=symbol)
{
i++;
}
loop_protection--;
if(loop_protection==0)
{
i = size;
break;
}
}
}
While this is not as concise as the other answers, it is very straightforward to understand for someone new to C, adapted from the Calculix source code.
char* remove_spaces(char * buff, int len)
{
int i=-1,k=0;
while(1){
i++;
if((buff[i]=='\0')||(buff[i]=='\n')||(buff[i]=='\r')||(i==len)) break;
if((buff[i]==' ')||(buff[i]=='\t')) continue;
buff[k]=buff[i];
k++;
}
buff[k]='\0';
return buff;
}
I assume the C string is in a fixed memory, so if you replace spaces you have to shift all characters.
The easiest seems to be to create new string and iterate over the original one and copy only non space characters.
I came across a variation to this question where you need to reduce multiply spaces into one space "represent" the spaces.
This is my solution:
char str[] = "Put Your string Here.....";
int copyFrom = 0, copyTo = 0;
printf("Start String %s\n", str);
while (str[copyTo] != 0) {
if (str[copyFrom] == ' ') {
str[copyTo] = str[copyFrom];
copyFrom++;
copyTo++;
while ((str[copyFrom] == ' ') && (str[copyFrom] !='\0')) {
copyFrom++;
}
}
str[copyTo] = str[copyFrom];
if (str[copyTo] != '\0') {
copyFrom++;
copyTo++;
}
}
printf("Final String %s\n", str);
Hope it helps :-)

C - Program not detecting blank spaces

I want my program to read a file containing words separated by blank spaces and then prints words one by one. This is what I did:
char *phrase = (char *)malloc(LONGMAX * sizeof(char));
char *mot = (char *)malloc(TAILLE * sizeof(char));
FILE *fp = NULL;
fp = fopen("mots.txt", "r");
if (fp == NULL) {
printf("err ");
} else {
fgets(phrase, LONGMAX, fp);
while (phrase[i] != '\0') {
if (phrase[i] != " ") {
mot[m] = phrase[i];
i++;
m++;
} else {
printf("%s\n", phrase[i]);
mot = "";
}
}
}
but it isn't printing anything! Am I doing something wrong? Thanks!
The i in the following:
while (phrase[i]!='\0'){
Should be initialized to 0 before being used, then incremented as you iterate through the string.
You have not shown where/how it is created.
Also in this line,
if(phrase[i]!=" "){
the code is comparing a char: (phrase[i]) with a string: ( " " )
// char string
if(phrase[i] != " " ){
change it to:
// char char
if(phrase[i] != ' '){
//or better yet, include all whitespace:
if(isspace(phrase[i]) {
There is no error checking in the following, but it is basically your code with modifications. Read comments for explanation on edits to fgets() usage, casting return of malloc(), how and when to terminate the output buffer mot, etc.:
This performs the following: read a file containing words separated by blank spaces and then prints words one by one.
int main(void)
{
int i = 0;
int m = 0;
char* phrase=malloc(LONGMAX);//sizeof(char) always == 0
if(phrase)//test to make sure memory created
{
char* mot=malloc(TAILLE);//no need to cast the return of malloc in C
if(mot)//test to make sure memory created
{
FILE* fp=NULL;
fp=fopen("_in.txt","r");
if(fp)//test to make sure fopen worked
{//shortcut of what you had :) (left off the print err)
i = 0;
m = 0;
while (fgets(phrase,LONGMAX,fp))//fgets return NULL when no more to read.
{
while(phrase[i] != NULL)//test for end of last line read
{
// if(phrase[i] == ' ')//see a space, terminate word and write to stdout
if(isspace(phrase[i])//see ANY white space, terminate and write to stdout
{
mot[m]=0;//null terminate
if(strlen(mot) > 0) printf("%s\n",mot);
i++;//move to next char in phrase.
m=0;//reset to capture next word
}
else
{
mot[m] = phrase[i];//copy next char into mot
m++;//increment both buffers
i++;// "
}
}
mot[m]=0;//null terminate after while loop
}
//per comment about last word. Print it out here.
mot[m]=0;
printf("%s\n",mot);
fclose(fp);
}
free(mot);
}
free(phrase);
}
return 0;
}
phrase[i]!=" "
You compare character (phrase[i]) and string (" "). If you want to compare phrase[i] with space character, use ' ' instead.
If you want to compare string, use strcmp.
printf("%s\n",phrase[i]);
Here, you use %s for printing the string, but phrase[i] is a character.
Do not use mot=""; to copy string in c. You should use strcpy:
strcpy(mot, " ");
If you want to print word by word from one line of string. You can use strtok to split string by space character.
fgets(phrase,LONGMAX,fp);
char * token = strtok(phrase, " ");
while(token != NULL) {
printf("%s \n", token);
token = strtok(NULL, " ");
}
OT, your program will get only one line in the file because you call only one time fgets. If your file content of many line, you should use a loop for fgets function.
while(fgets(phrase,LONGMAX,fp)) {
// do something with pharse string.
// strtok for example.
char * token = strtok(phrase, " ");
while(token != NULL) {
printf("%s \n", token);
token = strtok(NULL, " ");
}
}
Your program has multiple problems:
the test for end of file is incorrect: you should just compare the return value of fgets() with NULL.
the test for spaces is incorrect: phrase[i] != " " is a type mismatch as you are comparing a character with a pointer. You should use isspace() from <ctype.h>
Here is a much simpler alternative that reads one byte at a time, without a line buffer nor a word buffer:
#include <ctype.h>
#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
int inword = 0;
int c;
while ((c = getchar()) != EOF) {
if (isspace(c)) {
if (inword) {
putchar('\n');
inword = 0;
}
} else {
putchar(c);
inword = 1;
}
}
if (inword) {
putchar('\n');
}
return 0;
}

char pointer allocates random characters

I am writing a small C code for class that plays Hangman with an already input name. One section requires I allow the output of the input phrase with * in the place of all letters, but not punctuation. Similarly, at the end of the phrase, the name of the user is put in parentheses and is meant to be printed as is. The first section of the code works fine, the first while loop which places the asterisks, but the second while loop seems to fail every time and seems to store nonsense and random characters everytime the program is run. Here is the program I have so far.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main()
{
int guesses = 3;
int limit = 41;
char quote[42] = "I just wrote this game in C! (Josh Masher)";
char strArr[42];
char *quoP;
quoP = &quote[0];
char *strP;
strP = &strArr[0];
while (*quoP != '.' && *quoP != '!' && *quoP != '?') {
if (isalpha(*quoP)) {
*strP = '*';
} else if (*quoP == ' ' || *quoP == ',') {
*strP = *quoP;
}
strP++;
quoP++;
}
while (*quoP != NULL) {
*strP = *quoP;
strP++;
quoP++;
}
}
any ideas?
EDIT
I rewrote the code slightly, and erased the random character problem, but it is more complicated now.
int main()
{
int guesses = 3;
int limit = 41;
char quote[42] = "I just wrote this game in C! (Alex Butler)\0";
char strArr[42];
char *quoP;
quoP = &quote[0];
char *strP;
strP = &strArr[0];
int counter = 0;
while (*quoP != '\0') {
if (*quoP == '.' || *quoP == '!' || *quoP == '?' || counter == 1) {
counter = 1;
}
if (isalpha(*quoP)) {
if (counter == 0) {
*strP = '*';
} else if (counter == 1) {
*strP = *quoP;
}
} else {
*strP = *quoP;
}
printf("%c", *strP);
strP++;
quoP++;
}
}
Add *strP = '\0' after the last while loop to terminate the string.
Also, (*quoP != NULL) should be (*quoP != '\0') . The type of NULL is pointer, the type of *quoP is character. Your program will still work, but it's misleading.
Also might want to include ctype.h
Good luck with the rest of your project.
The first loop doesn't work fine. If it encounters unhandled punctuation (such as &), it will skip right over and leave junk there.
You do not null-terminate the string either, as others have pointed out in the comments. You would do better to copy the string first (with strncpy) and then stamp characters with * as you deem appropriate. That means you only have one loop, and it'll be a lot simpler:
strncpy( strArr, quote, sizeof(strArr) );
for( char *s = strArr; !strchr(".!?", *s); s++ )
{
if( isalpha(*s) ) *s = '*';
}
Also, NULL is a pointer. Null-termination is an unfortunate name for this. You can write the value 0 or '\0', but not NULL.

Reversing an unbounded string without checking for null character

Recently in an interview, I was asked to write a code to reverse an unbounded string without checking for the null character. I don't know the length of the string and cannot use any library function in any form..
I wrote the following code ( which I know is incorrect due to many reasons, one being I am not terminating the string with '\0', instead I am terminating it with CTRL+Z or CTRL+D)
while(scanf("%c",arr[i++])!=-1);
for(i--;i>=0;i--)
puts(arr[i]);
What can be the possible algorithm !!
Maybe something like:
void
reverse_print(const char* string) {
if (*string == 0) {
return;
}
reverse_print(string + 1);
putchar(*string);
}
Or, reading the string from input:
void
reverse_print() {
char c;
if (1 != scanf("%c", &c)) {
return;
}
reverse_print();
putchar(c);
}
It seems you are reading the string from input, and trying to print it.
You can just count the number of characters, and treat it like it was a normal array, something along the lines of:
int main() {
int i = 0;
char arr[256];
while(scanf("%c",arr + (i++))!=-1);
for(i = i-1; i+1; i--) putchar(arr[i]);
return 0;
}
If the array is completely unbounded, you will have to make sure you are not out of space, and if you are - reallocate it.
You can also add a NULL terminator manually when you are done. Since, it is not checking for it, you should be fine with the requirements.
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void)
{
char* string1 = "This is me the right guy!! understood !!!";
char* string = string1;
char *nonstring = "\x01\x05\x0a\x15";
int len = 0;
while ((*string ^ nonstring[0]) && (*string ^ nonstring[1])
&& (*string ^ nonstring[2]) && (*string ^ nonstring[3])
&& (*string ^ nonstring[4]))
{
len++;
string++;
}
//printf("%d\n", len);
while(len)
{
printf("%c", string1[--len]);
}
return 0;
}

Remove spaces from a string in C

What is the easiest and most efficient way to remove spaces from a string in C?
Easiest and most efficient don't usually go together…
Here's a possible solution for in-place removal:
void remove_spaces(char* s) {
char* d = s;
do {
while (*d == ' ') {
++d;
}
} while (*s++ = *d++);
}
Here's a very compact, but entirely correct version:
do while(isspace(*s)) s++; while(*d++ = *s++);
And here, just for my amusement, are code-golfed versions that aren't entirely correct, and get commenters upset.
If you can risk some undefined behavior, and never have empty strings, you can get rid of the body:
while(*(d+=!isspace(*s++)) = *s);
Heck, if by space you mean just space character:
while(*(d+=*s++!=' ')=*s);
Don't use that in production :)
As we can see from the answers posted, this is surprisingly not a trivial task. When faced with a task like this, it would seem that many programmers choose to throw common sense out the window, in order to produce the most obscure snippet they possibly can come up with.
Things to consider:
You will want to make a copy of the string, with spaces removed. Modifying the passed string is bad practice, it may be a string literal. Also, there are sometimes benefits of treating strings as immutable objects.
You cannot assume that the source string is not empty. It may contain nothing but a single null termination character.
The destination buffer can contain any uninitialized garbage when the function is called. Checking it for null termination doesn't make any sense.
Source code documentation should state that the destination buffer needs to be large enough to contain the trimmed string. Easiest way to do so is to make it as large as the untrimmed string.
The destination buffer needs to hold a null terminated string with no spaces when the function is done.
Consider if you wish to remove all white space characters or just spaces ' '.
C programming isn't a competition over who can squeeze in as many operators on a single line as possible. It is rather the opposite, a good C program contains readable code (always the single-most important quality) without sacrificing program efficiency (somewhat important).
For this reason, you get no bonus points for hiding the insertion of null termination of the destination string, by letting it be part of the copying code. Instead, make the null termination insertion explicit, to show that you haven't just managed to get it right by accident.
What I would do:
void remove_spaces (char* restrict str_trimmed, const char* restrict str_untrimmed)
{
while (*str_untrimmed != '\0')
{
if(!isspace(*str_untrimmed))
{
*str_trimmed = *str_untrimmed;
str_trimmed++;
}
str_untrimmed++;
}
*str_trimmed = '\0';
}
In this code, the source string "str_untrimmed" is left untouched, which is guaranteed by using proper const correctness. It does not crash if the source string contains nothing but a null termination. It always null terminates the destination string.
Memory allocation is left to the caller. The algorithm should only focus on doing its intended work. It removes all white spaces.
There are no subtle tricks in the code. It does not try to squeeze in as many operators as possible on a single line. It will make a very poor candidate for the IOCCC. Yet it will yield pretty much the same machine code as the more obscure one-liner versions.
When copying something, you can however optimize a bit by declaring both pointers as restrict, which is a contract between the programmer and the compiler, where the programmer guarantees that the destination and source are not the same address. This allows more efficient optimization, since the compiler can then copy straight from source to destination without temporary memory in between.
In C, you can replace some strings in-place, for example a string returned by strdup():
char *str = strdup(" a b c ");
char *write = str, *read = str;
do {
if (*read != ' ')
*write++ = *read;
} while (*read++);
printf("%s\n", str);
Other strings are read-only, for example those declared in-code. You'd have to copy those to a newly allocated area of memory and fill the copy by skipping the spaces:
char *oldstr = " a b c ";
char *newstr = malloc(strlen(oldstr)+1);
char *np = newstr, *op = oldstr;
do {
if (*op != ' ')
*np++ = *op;
} while (*op++);
printf("%s\n", newstr);
You can see why people invented other languages ;)
#include <ctype>
char * remove_spaces(char * source, char * target)
{
while(*source++ && *target)
{
if (!isspace(*source))
*target++ = *source;
}
return target;
}
Notes;
This doesn't handle Unicode.
if you are still interested, this function removes spaces from the beginning of the string, and I just had it working in my code:
void removeSpaces(char *str1)
{
char *str2;
str2=str1;
while (*str2==' ') str2++;
if (str2!=str1) memmove(str1,str2,strlen(str2)+1);
}
#include<stdio.h>
#include<string.h>
main()
{
int i=0,n;
int j=0;
char str[]=" Nar ayan singh ";
char *ptr,*ptr1;
printf("sizeof str:%ld\n",strlen(str));
while(str[i]==' ')
{
memcpy (str,str+1,strlen(str)+1);
}
printf("sizeof str:%ld\n",strlen(str));
n=strlen(str);
while(str[n]==' ' || str[n]=='\0')
n--;
str[n+1]='\0';
printf("str:%s ",str);
printf("sizeof str:%ld\n",strlen(str));
}
The easiest and most efficient way to remove spaces from a string is to simply remove the spaces from the string literal. For example, use your editor to 'find and replace' "hello world" with "helloworld", and presto!
Okay, I know that's not what you meant. Not all strings come from string literals, right? Supposing this string you want spaces removed from doesn't come from a string literal, we need to consider the source and destination of your string... We need to consider your entire algorithm, what actual problem you're trying to solve, in order to suggest the simplest and most optimal methods.
Perhaps your string comes from a file (e.g. stdin) and is bound to be written to another file (e.g. stdout). If that's the case, I would question why it ever needs to become a string in the first place. Just treat it as though it's a stream of characters, discarding the spaces as you come across them...
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void) {
for (;;) {
int c = getchar();
if (c == EOF) { break; }
if (c == ' ') { continue; }
putchar(c);
}
}
By eliminating the need for storage of a string, not only does the entire program become much, much shorter, but theoretically also much more efficient.
/* Function to remove all spaces from a given string.
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/remove-spaces-from-a-given-string/
*/
void remove_spaces(char *str)
{
int count = 0;
for (int i = 0; str[i]; i++)
if (str[i] != ' ')
str[count++] = str[i];
str[count] = '\0';
}
Code taken from zString library
/* search for character 's' */
int zstring_search_chr(char *token,char s){
if (!token || s=='\0')
return 0;
for (;*token; token++)
if (*token == s)
return 1;
return 0;
}
char *zstring_remove_chr(char *str,const char *bad) {
char *src = str , *dst = str;
/* validate input */
if (!(str && bad))
return NULL;
while(*src)
if(zstring_search_chr(bad,*src))
src++;
else
*dst++ = *src++; /* assign first, then incement */
*dst='\0';
return str;
}
Code example
Exmaple Usage
char s[]="this is a trial string to test the function.";
char *d=" .";
printf("%s\n",zstring_remove_chr(s,d));
Example Output
thisisatrialstringtotestthefunction
Have a llok at the zString code, you may find it useful
https://github.com/fnoyanisi/zString
That's the easiest I could think of (TESTED) and it works!!
char message[50];
fgets(message, 50, stdin);
for( i = 0, j = 0; i < strlen(message); i++){
message[i-j] = message[i];
if(message[i] == ' ')
j++;
}
message[i] = '\0';
Here is the simplest thing i could think of. Note that this program uses second command line argument (argv[1]) as a line to delete whitespaces from.
#include <string.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
/*The function itself with debug printing to help you trace through it.*/
char* trim(const char* str)
{
char* res = malloc(sizeof(str) + 1);
char* copy = malloc(sizeof(str) + 1);
copy = strncpy(copy, str, strlen(str) + 1);
int index = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < strlen(copy) + 1; i++) {
if (copy[i] != ' ')
{
res[index] = copy[i];
index++;
}
printf("End of iteration %d\n", i);
printf("Here is the initial line: %s\n", copy);
printf("Here is the resulting line: %s\n", res);
printf("\n");
}
return res;
}
int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
//trim function test
const char* line = argv[1];
printf("Here is the line: %s\n", line);
char* res = malloc(sizeof(line) + 1);
res = trim(line);
printf("\nAnd here is the formatted line: %s\n", res);
return 0;
}
This is implemented in micro controller and it works, it should avoid all problems and it is not a smart way of doing it, but it will work :)
void REMOVE_SYMBOL(char* string, uint8_t symbol)
{
uint32_t size = LENGHT(string); // simple string length function, made my own, since original does not work with string of size 1
uint32_t i = 0;
uint32_t k = 0;
uint32_t loop_protection = size*size; // never goes into loop that is unbrakable
while(i<size)
{
if(string[i]==symbol)
{
k = i;
while(k<size)
{
string[k]=string[k+1];
k++;
}
}
if(string[i]!=symbol)
{
i++;
}
loop_protection--;
if(loop_protection==0)
{
i = size;
break;
}
}
}
While this is not as concise as the other answers, it is very straightforward to understand for someone new to C, adapted from the Calculix source code.
char* remove_spaces(char * buff, int len)
{
int i=-1,k=0;
while(1){
i++;
if((buff[i]=='\0')||(buff[i]=='\n')||(buff[i]=='\r')||(i==len)) break;
if((buff[i]==' ')||(buff[i]=='\t')) continue;
buff[k]=buff[i];
k++;
}
buff[k]='\0';
return buff;
}
I assume the C string is in a fixed memory, so if you replace spaces you have to shift all characters.
The easiest seems to be to create new string and iterate over the original one and copy only non space characters.
I came across a variation to this question where you need to reduce multiply spaces into one space "represent" the spaces.
This is my solution:
char str[] = "Put Your string Here.....";
int copyFrom = 0, copyTo = 0;
printf("Start String %s\n", str);
while (str[copyTo] != 0) {
if (str[copyFrom] == ' ') {
str[copyTo] = str[copyFrom];
copyFrom++;
copyTo++;
while ((str[copyFrom] == ' ') && (str[copyFrom] !='\0')) {
copyFrom++;
}
}
str[copyTo] = str[copyFrom];
if (str[copyTo] != '\0') {
copyFrom++;
copyTo++;
}
}
printf("Final String %s\n", str);
Hope it helps :-)

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