to print each character of a word in c program - c

I am having a c program which print letter by letter of the word. I referred this program from this link
https://www.tutorialgateway.org/c-program-to-print-characters-in-a-string/. If I run this program in online c compiler this gives the exact result, but not working in turbo c++
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
char str[100];
printf("\n Please Enter any String : ");
scanf("%s", str);
for(int i = 0; str[i] != '\0'; i++)
{
printf("The Character at %d Index Position = %c \n", i, str[i]);
}
return 0;
}
This program doesn't through any error, but I don't know why this program doesn't print the result.

Try fgets(str, 100, stdin) instead of scanf(). This is the normal way to read a line into a buffer. When I used scanf() I only got part of the output because it will stop reading a string at a space.

IDK what is your output, but here is mine:
Please Enter any String : Hell got loose
The Character at 0 Index Position = H
The Character at 1 Index Position = e
The Character at 2 Index Position = l
The Character at 3 Index Position = l
This is normal, due to this:
Matches a sequence of non-white-space characters; the next pointer must be a pointer to character array that is long enough to hold the input sequence and the terminating null character ('\0'), which is added automatically. The input string stops at white space or at the maximum field width, whichever occurs first.
this is taken from scanf.
EDIT:
Just for the fun, you can do this using scanf
scanf("%[^\n]",str);
this will replace \n newline with '\0'.
NOTE: #Joshua's answer is safer, if you want to know why just google why I shouldn't use scanf()

Related

Output didn't include all of the characters

I was trying to input a string of characters and only output the last and the first character respectively. Below is the code I'm using.
#include<stdio.h>
int main(){
for(int i=0;i<3;i++){
int n; // length of the string
char string[101];
scanf("%d %s", &n, &string);
fflush(stdin); // sometimes I also use getchar();
printf("%c%c", string[n+1], string[0]);
}
printf("\n");
return 0;
}
I'm using for loop because i wanted to input the string 3 times, but when I ran the code the input isn't what I expected. If I input e.g.
5 abcde
output
a //there's space before the a
can you help me tell where I've gone wrong?
input:
5 abcde
6 qwerty
3 ijk
excpeted output:
ea
yq
ki
Few problems in your code:
In this statement
scanf("%d %s", &n, &string);
you don't need to give & operator with string. An array name, when used in an expression, converts to pointer to first element (there are few exceptions to this rule). Also, the size of string array is 101 characters but if you provide input more than 101 characters, the scanf() end up accessing string array beyond its size. You should restrict the scanf() to not to read more than 100 characters in string array when input size is more than that. (keep the remain one character space is for null terminating character that scanf() adds). For this, you can provide width modifier in the format specifier - %100s.
You are not validating the string length input against the input string from user. What happen, if the input string length is greater than or less than the actual length of input string!
fflush(stdin) is undefined behaviour because, as per standard, fflush can only be used with output streams.
I was trying to input a string of characters and only output the last and the first character respectively.
For this, you don't need to take the length of the string as input from user. Use standard library function - strlen(). This will also prevent your program from the problems that can occur due to erroneous length input from user, if that is not validated properly.
Putting these altogether, you can do:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
int main (void) {
for (int i = 0; i < 3 ; i++) {
char string[101];
printf ("Enter string:\n");
scanf("%100s", string);
printf("Last character: %c, First character: %c\n", string[strlen(string) - 1], string[0]);
int c;
/*discard the extra characters, if any*/
/*For e.g. if user input is very long this will discard the input beyond 100 characters */
while((c = getchar()) != '\n' && c != EOF)
/* discard the character */;
}
return 0;
}
Note that, scanf(%<width>s, ......) reads up to width or until the first whitespace character, whichever appears first. If you want to include the spaces in input, you can use the appropriate conversion specifier in scanf() or a better alternative is to use fgets() for input from user.
Line 11: string[n+1] -> string[n-1]

Counting the Whole String Including The Spaces in C

I'm trying to set up a code that counts the whole string and doesn't stop after the first space that it finds. How do I do that?
I tried this kind of code but it just counts the first word then goes to display the number of letters in that first word.
So far this is what I have tried.
int main(){
char get[100];
int i, space=0, len=0, tot;
scanf("%s", get);
for (i=0; get[i]!='\0'; i++)
{
if (get[i] == ' ')
space++;
else
len++;
}
tot = space + len;
printf("%i", tot);
}
And
int main(){
char get[100];
int len;
scanf("%s", &get);
len = strlen(get);
printf("%i", len);
}
But would still get the same answer as the first one.
I expected that if the
input: The fox is gorgeous.
output: 19
But all I get is
input: The fox is gorgeous.
output: 3
strlen already includes spaces, since it counts the length of the string up to the terminating NUL character (zero, '\0').
Your problem is that that the %s conversion of scanf stops reading when it encounters whitespace, so your string never included it in the first place (you can verify this easily by printing out the string). (You could fix it by using different scanf conversions, but in general it's easier to get things right by reading with fgets – it also forces you to specify the buffer size, fixing the potential buffer overflow in your current code.)
The Answer by Arkku is correct in its diagnose.
However, if you wish to use scanf, you could do this:
scanf("%99[^\n]", get);
The 99 tells scanf not to read more than 99 characters, so your get buffer won't overflow. The [^\n] tells scanf to read any character until it encounters the newline character (when you hit enter).
As Chux pointed out, the code still has 2 issues.
When using scanf, it is always a good idea to check its return value, which is the number of items it could read. Also, indeed the \n remains in the input buffer when using the above syntax. So, you could do this:
if(scanf("%99[^\n]", get) == 0){
get[0] = 0; //Put in a NUL terminator if scanf read nothing
}
getchar(); //Remove the newline character from the input buffer
I will take one example to explain the concept.
main()
{
char s[20], i;
scanf("%[^\n]", &s);
while(s[i] != '\0') {
i++;
}
printf("%d", i);
return 0;
}
i have used c language and u can loop through the ending the part of the string and you will get the length. here i have used "EDIT SET CONVESRION METHOD" to read string, you can also gets to read.

Calculate length of string without using strlen() function

Having a doubt regarding a very simple C code. I wrote a code to calculate the length of a string without using the strlen function. The code below works correctly if i enter a string with no spaces in between. But if i enter a string like "My name is ---", the length shown is the length of the word before the first white space, which in the example, would be 2. Why is that? Aren't white space and null character two different characters? Please guide me as to how i can change the code so that the entire string length is returned?
char s[1000];
int length = 0;
printf ("Enter string : ");
scanf ("%s", s);
for (int i = 0; s[i] != '\0'; i++)
{
length++;
}
printf ("Length of given string : %d", length);
It is because scanf with %s reads until it finds white space.
from man scanf
Matches a sequence of non-white-space characters; the next pointer
must be a pointer to character array that is long enough to hold the
input sequence and the terminating null byte ('\0'), which is added
automatically. The input string stops at white space or at the maximum
field width, whichever occurs first.
If you want read until \n including white space you can do as below.
scanf("%999[^\n]", s);
Or you could use fgets.
scanf reads the data until "\0" or "\20". So use "fgets" method which reads the data until "\n" (next line) with "stdin",
Example Program:
#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
char s[100];
printf("Input String: ");
fgets(s, sizeof(s), stdin);
printf("\nLength of the string is = %d", printf("%s"), s);
return 0;
}

Taking strings as a 2-D char array

I want a code such that I enter some strings one-by-one (by pressing enter) and display it.
for example;
Input
abc
def
Output
abc
def
also I want this input to be in a array so that I can select any character
from the array whenever I want. For example: s[1][1] gives 'e'.
I have writen a code for this problem.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main()
{
int i, j, n, m;
scanf("%d%d", &n, &m);
char a[n][m];
for (i = 0; i<n; i++)
scanf("%s", a[i]);
for (i = 0; i<n; i++) {
printf("%s", a[i]);
printf("\n");
}
}
But for this code my input/output goes like this:
Input
ab
cd
Output
abcd
cd
Can anyone tell where am I going wrong?
You have not shown the input value of n and m in the question. But from the input and output string shown, it seems that char array a[i] does not have the enough space for terminating null-character \0. When you give format specifier %s, scanf() automatically adds a terminating null character at the end of the stored sequence. I tried your code with input 2 for both n and m and I am getting the output as you are getting:
$ ./a.out
2 2
ab
cd
abcd
cd
Give the value 4 to m and the output is:
2 4
ab
cd
ab
cd
When using scanf() for string input, it is good to add check for max character modifier that is 1 less than the length of the input buffer. So, if the size of input buffer is 4 then you can do
scanf("%3s",a[i]);
With this, the scanf() will read not more than 3 characters in a[i] and will add \0 at the fourth location of a[i]. Beware with this, it does not discard the remaining input from input stream and they will be consumed by consecutive scanf() call.
If you want to drop the extra input which wasn't consumed by scanf, one way of doing it is to read and discard the extra input using a loop, like this:
int c;
while((c = getchar()) != '\n' && c != EOF)
/* discard the character */;
You can add it after scanf() reads data from input stream, like this:
for(i=0; i<n; i++) {
scanf("%3s", a[i]); // assuming the size of a[i] is 4
int c;
while((c = getchar()) != '\n' && c != EOF) // <=== This loop read the extra input characters and discard them
/* discard the character */;
}
This will work fine for the input that does not contain any whitespace characters. If your input contain any whitespace character, it may not behave as expected. Hence, I would suggest you to read about fgets() which gives you better control for string input.
Check this: fgets
and this: How to read from stdin with fgets()?
you are working with a 2D array of char:
char a[n][m];
but keep in mind the value for the 2nd index should be 1 character longer than the length of the string you wish it to allow room for the \0 byte. (all C strings must be null terminated)
This means char a[n][m]; can contain up to n strings, each string with maximum length of m-1 bytes.
char exampleStr[] = {"char count"}; //for example contains 11 characters (not 10)
|c|h|a|r| |c|o|u|n|t|\0| //note nul char is appended
Another common problem when reading user input in a loop is failure to remove any unwanted newlines, which can cause the loop to behave poorly. Following is an example of how to read a user specified number of strings ( using fgets() instead of scanf() ), each with a user specified length: (also removing unwanted newlines ( \n ) in the process)
For readability, the following example replaces n & m with lines & maxLen.
int main(void)
{
int lines, maxLen, i=0;
printf("Enter number of lines:");
scanf(" %d", &lines);
printf("Enter maxLen line length:");
scanf(" %d", &maxLen);
char line[lines][maxLen+2]; //+2 to allow for trailing newline and null
fgets(line[i], maxLen, stdin);//consume anything left in stdout
printf("Enter up to %d characters and hit return:\n%d) ", maxLen, i+1);
for(i=0;i<(lines);i++)
{
fgets(line[i], maxLen, stdin);
line[i][strcspn(line[i], "\n")] = 0; // clear newline
printf("Enter up to %d characters and hit return:\n%d) ", maxLen, i+1);
}
return 0;
}
All strings in C must be terminated with the null character \0, print knows this and prints all character UP TO that sign. You should make all of your strings 1 character longer than the words you plan to fit in them and fill them with 0 (0 is the integer value of \0) in the start to avoid this problem.

Why does the presence of `n` in the input sentence before `\n` give wrong output?

I want to input a sentence (containing any possible characters) and print it. But there is a catch. If there is a \n in the sentence then only the part of the sentence before \n should be printed out (i.e. \n should signify the end of the inputted sentence). I wrote a code for this situation :
#include <stdio.h>
main()
{
char ch[100];
printf("Enter a sentence");
scanf("%99[^\\n]",&ch);
printf("%s",ch);
}
This code seems to work fine but it fails in a certain situation.
If there is the character n anywhere in the sentence before \n then it prints only the first word of the sentence! Why does this happen? How can I fix this bug?
This case works fine:
But in this case it fails:
Detail from comments:
Q: Do you want to to stop at a newline, or at a backslash followed by n?
A: slash followed by n
The [] conversion specifier of scanf() works by defining an accepted (or, with ^, rejected) set of characters. So %[^\\n] will stop scanning at the first \ or the first n -> You can't solve your problem with scanf().
You should just read a line of input with fgets() and search for an occurence of "\\n" with strstr().
Side note: there's an error in your program:
char ch[100];
scanf("%99[^\\n]",&ch);
ch evaluates as a pointer to the first element of the array (so, would be fine as parameter for scanf()), while &ch evaluates to a pointer to the array, which is not what scanf() expects.
(the difference is in the type, the address will be the same)
OP's calcification negated the first part of this answer.
OP has not formed the desired scan set for the "%[...]" specifier.
"%99[^\\n]" accepts any character except '\\' and 'n'.
Certainly OP wants "%99[^\n]". \\ changed to \ to accept any character except '\n'.
Yet I would like to take the goal up a bit. This part is only for pedantic code.
input a sentence (containing any possible characters)
How would code handle this if the null character '\0' was included in that "any possible character"?
Note that inputting a null character is not often easy from a keyboard.
Interestingly "%99[^\n]" will scan up to 99 characters (except a '\n') including the null character. Yet the below code prints ch as it it were a string and not a general array of characters.
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void) {
char ch[100];
printf("Enter a sentence\n");
if (scanf("%99[^\n]", ch) != 1) {
ch[0] = '\0'; // Handle a line of only `'\n``, EOF, or error
}
printf("%s",ch);
}
To accomplish this esoteric goal with scanf() (not the best tool in the shed), record the length of the scan and then print the array.
int main(void) {
char ch[100];
int n;
printf("Enter a sentence\n");
if (scanf("%99[^\n]%n", ch, &n) != 1) {
n = 0; // If scanning stopped right away, set length `n` to 0
}
// Write as an array
fwrite(ch, sizeof ch[0], n, stdout);
}

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