Converting string to one with escape sequences - c

Question

I have a char string containing hexadecimal characters (without 0x or \x):
char *A = "0a0b0c";
from which I want to obtain
const char *B = "\x0a\x0b\x0c";
Is there an efficient way to do this? Thanks!
EDIT: To be clear, I want the resultant string to contain the 3 characters \x0a, \x0b, \x0c, not a 12 character string that says "\x0a\x0b\x0c" where the \ and x are read as individual characters.
This is what I have tried:
const char *B[12];
for (j = 0; j < 4; ++j) {
B[4 * j + 0] = '\\';
B[4 * j + 1] = 'x';
B[4 * j + 2] = A[2 * j];
B[4 * j + 3] = A[2 * j + 1];
};
B[12] = '\0';
which gives me a 12 character string "\x0a\x0b\x0c", but I want B to be as if it was assigned thus:
const char *B = "\x0a\x0b\x0c";

Answer 1

There are multiple confusions in your code:
the input string has 6 characters and a null terminator
the output string should be defined as const char B[3]; or possibly const char B[4]; if you intend to set a null terminator after the 3 converted bytes.
the definition const char *B[12]; in your code defines an array of 12 pointers to strings, which is a very different beast.
The for is fine, but it does not do what you want at all. You want to convert the hexadecimal encoded values to byte values, not insert extra \ and x characters.
the trailing ; after the } is useless
you set a null terminator at B[12], which is beyond the end of B.
Here is a corrected version using sscanf:
const char *A = "0a0b0c";
const char B[4] = { 0 };
for (j = 0; j < 3; j++) {
sscanf(&A[j * 2], "%2hhx", (unsigned char *)&B[j]);
}
The conversion format %2hhx means convert at most the first 2 bytes at A[j * 2] as an unsigned integer encoded in hexadecimal and store the resulting value into the unsigned char at B[j]. The cast is only necessary to avoid a compiler warning.

Answer 2

You can write a function that would sprintf the desired into a string, and then concat that with the destination string.
Something along these lines...
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
void createB (char B[10], const char *start)
{
char temp[10];
sprintf(temp, "\\x%c%c", start[0], start[1]);
strcat(B, temp);
}
int main ()
{
char A[] = "0a0b0c";
char B[10] = {'\0'};
for (int i=0; A[i] != '\0'; i = i+2)
{
createB(B, A+i);
}
printf("%s\n", B);
return 0;
}
$ ./main.out
\x0a\x0b\x0c
You can modify that to suit your needs or make it more efficient as you feel.
Please make edits as you please; to make it safer with necessary checks. I have just provided a working logic.

Answer 3

If you simply want to add "\x" before each '0' in the string-literal A with the result in a new string B, a simple and direct loop is all that is required, and storage in B sufficient to handle the addition for "\x" for each '0' in A.
For example:
#include <stdio.h>
#define MAXC 32
int main (void) {
char *A = "0a0b0c",
*pa = A,
B[MAXC],
*pb = B;
do { /* loop over all chars in A */
if (*pa && *pa == '0') { /* if chars remain && char is '0' */
*pb++ = '\\'; /* write '\' to B, adv ptr */
*pb++ = 'x'; /* write 'x' to B, adv ptr */
}
*pb++ = *pa; /* write char from A, adv ptr */
} while (*pa++); /* while chars remain (writes nul-termining char) */
puts (B); /* output result */
}
You cannot simply change A to an array with char A[] = 0a0b0c"; and then write back to A as there would be insufficient space in A to handle the character addition. You can always declare A large enough and then shift the characters to the right by two for each addition of "\x", but it makes more sense just to write the results to a new string.
Example Use/Output
$ ./bin/straddescx
\x0a\x0b\x0c
If you need something different, let me know and I'm happy to help further. This is probably one of the more direct ways to handle the addition of the character sequence you want.

Answer 4

#include <stdio.h>
int main(void)
{
char str1[] = "0a0b0c";
char str2[1000];
int i, j;
i = j = 0;
printf("sizeof str1 is %d.\n", sizeof(str1)-1);
for(i = 0; i < sizeof(str1)-1; i += 2)
{
str2[j] = '\\';
str2[j+1] = 'x';
str2[j+2] = str1[i];
str2[j+3] = str1[i+1];
j+=4;
}
str2[j] = '\0';
printf("%s\n", str2);
return 0;
}
I think you can do like this.

Answer 5

Assuming no bad input, assuming 'a' to 'f' are sequentially in order, assuming no uppercase:
// remember to #include <ctype.h>
char *input = "0a0b0c";
char *p = input;
while (*p) {
v = (isdigit((unsigned char)*p) ? *p-'0' : *p-'a'+10) * 16;
p++;
v += isdigit((unsigned char)*p) ? *p-'0' : *p-'a'+10;
p++;
printf("0x%d", v); // use v
}

Answer 6

While using char A[] = "0a0b0c";, as proposed by kiran, would make it possible to change the string, it wil not yet allow to insert characters. Because that would make the string longer and hence not fit into the available memory. This in turn is a problem, if you cannot create the target string right away with the needed size.
You could know the needed size in advance, if the input is always of the same length and always requires the same number of inserted characters, e.g. if like in your example, the target string is double the size of the input string. For a simple character array definition, you would need to know the size already at compile time.
char A[7] = "0a0b0c"; /* not 6, because size for the termianting \0 is needed */
char B[13] = ""; /* 2*6+1 */
So you can stay with char *A = "0a0b0c"; and make your life easier by setting up memory of appropriate size to serve as target. For that you need to first determine the length of the needed memory, then allocate it.
Determining the size if easy, if you know that it will be twice the input size.
/* inside a function, this does not work as a variable definition */
int iLengthB = 2*length(A);
char* B = malloc(iLengthB+1); /* mind the terminator */
Then loop over A, copying each two characters to B, prepending them with the two characters "\x". I assume that this part is obvious to you. Otherwise please show how you setup the program as described above and make a loop outputting each character from A separatly. Then, after you demonstrated that effort, I can help more.