For Loop Not Terminating with Null Terminator - c

Question

I am working on a machine problem and was tasked to input 'n' arrays that I will then have to “merge sort”.
However, when I execute and input the words, it won't stop at the 'nth' word and will ask me to input more characters even when I made use of a null terminator.
Any help would be much appreciated.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include "mp1_lib.h"
int main()
{
int n;
printf("\n");
printf("Input n: ");
scanf("%d", &n);
n += 1;
char words[n][16];
initialize(n, words);
get_words(n, words);
print_words(n, words);
printf("\n");
}
void initialize(int n, char words[][16])
{
for (int x=0; x < n; x++)
{
for(int y=0; y < 16; y++)
{
words[x][y] = ' ';
}
}
}
void get_words(int n, char words[][16])
{
char c;
char check = '0';
for(int x = 0; x < n; x++)
{
int y = 0;
while (check != '\0' && y < 16)
{
c = getchar();
words[x][y] = c;
check = c;
y++;
}
}
}
void print_words(int n, char words[][16])
{
for(int x=0; x < n; x++)
{
for(int y=0; y < 16; y++)
{
putchar(words[x][y]);
}
}
}

Answer 1

Since typing a null character can be tricky for the end user, I suggest you change your line to check for other character like an escape character or ESC key which value is 27 and it is easier to type
while (check != 27 && y < 16)

Answer 2

You cannot enter a '\0'-character, which is the same as value 0 or 0x0, through the keyboard. Hence, your loop will not terminate this way.
Usually, when getting input through the keyboard, you will terminate a single string by pressing "enter", represented by the new line character '\n' then.
You could further enhance your program to stop scanning words once an "empty" word is entered, i.e. the length of the word is 0.
See the following program, which makes use of fgets for reading in a string until the next new line character + a common code to remove the new line character itself then:
void get_words(int n, char words[][16])
{
for(int x = 0; x < n; x++)
{
if (fgets(words[x],16,stdin)){
words[x][strcspn(words[x],"\n")] = '\0'; // remove new line (if any)
}
else{
words[x][0] = '\0'; // othwise, set it to an empty string
break;
}
if (words[x][0] == '\0') // empty string entered (or end-of-file reached)
break;
}
}
void print_words(int n, char words[][16])
{
for(int x=0; x < n && words[x][0] != '\0'; x++) {
printf("%s\n",words[x]);
}
}
int main()
{
int n;
printf("\n");
printf("Input n: ");
scanf("%d\n", &n);
n += 1;
char words[n][16];
get_words(n, words);
print_words(n, words);
printf("\n");
}
Note further that your initialize-function does not terminate the strings; This will lead to undefined behaviour once you access the strings then using, for example, with printf.
Suggestion:
void initialize(int n, char words[][16])
{
for (int x=0; x < n; x++)
{
for(int y=0; y < 16; y++)
{
words[x][y] = ' ';
}
words[x][16-1] = '\0';
}
}