Numbers in char array printing as random characters - c

Question

So I'm writing a somewhat simple C program that is supposed to take a string of characters separated by semicolons as input. The program is then supposed to sort the strings by length and print them to the console.
Ex: abc;12;def;1234
The issue I'm having is that any numbers that are entered end up being printed as random symbols and I'm not sure why. I'm taking in input in this function:
void get_strings(char** c)
{
while (scanf("%[^;]s", c[numStrings]) != EOF)
{
getchar();
numStrings += 1;
}
}
Since scanf is looking for strings, if numbers are entered, are they stored as the 'character form' of those numbers, or should I be casting somehow?
Here's the rest of the code:
int numStrings = 0;
void sort_strings(char** c)
{
for (int i = 0; i < numStrings; i++)
{
for (int j = 0; j < numStrings - i; j++)
{
if (strlen(c[j]) > strlen(c[j + 1]))
{
char temp[1000];
strcpy(c[j], temp);
strcpy(c[j + 1], c[j]);
strcpy(temp, c[j + 1]);
}
}
}
}
void show_strings(char** c)
{
for (int i = 0; i < numStrings; i++)
{
if (printf("%s\n", c[i]) != EOF) break;
}
}
int main()
{
char wordLen[100][1000];
char* word2[100];
for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++)
{
word2[i] = wordLen[i];
}
char** words = word2;
get_strings(words);
sort_strings(words);
show_strings(words);
return 0;
}

Answer 1

The parsing code is incorrect:
void get_strings(char **c) {
while (scanf("%[^;]s", c[numStrings]) != EOF) {
getchar();
numStrings += 1;
}
}
the scanf() format contains an extra s that does not match the input.
the return value of scanf() should be compared to 1 to ensure successful conversion. Conversion failure produces EOF only at end of file, otherwise it produces 0 and the contents of c[numStrings] will be indeterminate.
conversion stops at the first character ;, this character stays in the input stream, but it is read by getchar(), yet if there is an empty field, the corresponding conversion would fail and the contents of the array would be indeterminate.
you should not use a global variable for the number of strings read. You should instead return this number.
The sorting code is incorrect too:
the inner loop runs one index too far: j + 1 must be less than numStrings for all runs.
the arguments to strcpy are passed in the wrong order.
strcpy should not be used at all, you should just swap the pointers.
show_strings() always stops after the first line as printf will return the number of characters printed.
You can fix the reading loop this way:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
int get_strings(char **c, int maxStrings) {
int numStrings = 0;
while (numStrings < maxStrings) {
switch (scanf("%999[^;]", c[numStrings])) {
case 1:
getchar();
numStrings += 1;
break;
case 0:
if (getchar() == ';') {
c[numStrings] = '\0';
numStrings += 1;
}
break;
case EOF:
return numStrings;
}
}
}
void sort_strings(char **c, int count) {
for (int i = 0; i < count; i++) {
for (int j = 0; j < count - i - 1; j++) {
if (strlen(c[j]) > strlen(c[j + 1])) {
char *temp = c[j];
c[j] = c[j + 1];
c[j + 1] = temp;
}
}
}
}
void show_strings(char **c, int count) {
for (int i = 0; i < count; i++) {
printf("%s\n", c[i]);
}
}
int main(void) {
char words[1000][100];
char *wordPtrs[100];
int numStrings;
for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++) {
wordPtrs[i] = words[i];
}
numStrings = get_strings(wordPtrs, 100);
sort_strings(wordPtrs, numStrings);
show_strings(wordPtrs, numStrings);
return 0;
}