XOR two strings from argv in C - c

Want to XOR two strings fetched from argv.
I checked this question How to xor two string in C? but it could not solve it for me.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
int main(int argc, char const *argv[]) {
char output[]="";
int i;
for (i=0; i<strlen(argv[1]); i++){
char temp = argv[1][i]^argv[2][i];
output[i]= temp;
}
output[i] = '\0';
printf("XOR: %s\n",output);
return 0;
}
When I use lldb to debug my output ("(lldb) print output") it is /a/x16/t/x13 but it can not be printed by printf(). I know that it is not a string anymore. Can you help me how to make it able to be printf:ed.
The text that is printed in the terminal is "XOR: "

There's some memory bugs in your code. Perhaps the following would work better:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#define min(i, j) ((i) < (j) ? (i) : (j))
int main(int argc, char const *argv[])
{
char *output;
int i;
/* Allocate a buffer large enough to hold the smallest of the two strings
* passed in, plus one byte for the trailing NUL required at the end of
* all strings.
*/
output = malloc(min(strlen(argv[1]), strlen(argv[2])) + 1);
/* Iterate through the strings, XORing bytes from each string together
* until the smallest string has been consumed. We can't go beyond the
* length of the smallest string without potentially causing a memory
* access error.
*/
for(i = 0; i < min(strlen(argv[1]), strlen(argv[2])) ; i++)
output[i] = argv[1][i] ^ argv[2][i];
/* Add a NUL character on the end of the generated string. This could
* equally well be written as
*
* output[min(strlen(argv[1]), strlen(argv[2]))] = 0;
*
* to demonstrate the intent of the code.
*/
output[i] = '\0';
/* Print the XORed string. Note that if characters in argv[1]
* and argv[2] with matching indexes are the same the resultant byte
* in the XORed result will be zero, which will terminate the string.
*/
printf("XOR: %s\n", output);
return 0;
}
As far as printf goes, keep in mind that x ^ x = 0 and that \0 is the string terminator in C.
Best of luck.

Related

Converting string to one with escape sequences

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";
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.
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.
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.
#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.
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
}
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.

Replace a character in char* for double value

I have a char * and I need to replace a character for a double value (unknown number of digits). So I believe that I need to count the number of digits then make a realloc() and replace the characters. I'm just not sure how to count the number of digits and make this replacement.
For example:
char *c = strdup("a+b");
double d = 10;
//I'd like to replace 'a' for 10.
//then 'c' would be : 10+b.
//Next iteration I need to change the 'b' value then I get:
//c = 10 + 3
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
const char* s = "a+b";
double d = 10.23142;
//determine the string length needed for printing d
size_t n = snprintf(NULL, 0, "%g", d);
// old string length + n - 1 for replaced b + 1 for '\0'
char* new_s = malloc( strlen(s) + n - 1 + 1);
//write the double
sprintf(new_s, "%g", d);
//skip the first byte (where b is) at the source and the double's length at the destination
strcpy(new_s + n, s + 1);
printf("%s\n", new_s); //prints 10.2314+b
free(new_s);
return 0;
}
It's easy to make an off-by-one error in this kind of pointer arithmetic, so something like gcc's mudflap or AddressSanitizer are really useful in checking to make sure the program doesn't go into undefined behavior in some place.
Better yet, if you can, use C++ and you won't have to worry about this kind of stuff:
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
string s = "a+b";
double d = 10.23142;
s.replace(0,1,to_string(d));
cout<<s<<endl;
return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}
The problem with realloc is that you may not necessarily get back the same address, so technically you may not so much replace the character as create a new string.
You could measure the size of double by printing it into a static buffer, and taking strlen:
char buf[32];
sprintf(buf, "%f", dbl);
size_t Len = strlen(buf);
Demo
Now you can allocate more space, move the content to the back, and then copy characters from buf into reallocated space.

Largest Palindrome in C

Really need help!
This code should find a largest palindrome in a string. Which means if there are "abcdcba" and "cdc" in the same string, it should print "abcdcba" out since the length is longer. The function takes a string str and 2 points i and j and determines whether the string from i to j is a palindrome. If it is a palindrome, returns the length of the palindrome and if it is not, returns -1.
int palindromelength(char *str, int i, int j){
int *first = &i, *last = &j;
int len;
while (first < last){
if (toupper(*first) != toupper(*last))
return -1;
first++;
last--;
}
len = last - first;
return (len);
}
int main() {
int length, i, j;
char str;
scanf("%s", &str);
length = strlen(str);
printf("Length = %d\n", palindromelength(str, i, j));
//should print out largest palindrome.
return 0;
}
What you describe and what the function is supposed to do are inconsistent:
"The function takes a string str and 2 points i and j and determines whether the string from i to j is a palindrome. If it is a palindrome, returns the length of the palindrome and if it is not, returns -1"
Therefore the function should returen either j - i or -1
char str;
scanf("%s", &str);
This is not how you should declare then initialize a string. Use instead:
char str[512];
scanf ("%s", str);
Also note that you'll need to ask the user to input the length of that string, and you'll need to pass that length as argument in the "palindromelength" function
You access the (i+1)th entry of your string like this:
str[i]
but before, you need to check that i is strictly lower than the length of your string. And don't forget to initialize i and j in your main() function
Before starting to code, write an algorithm in pseudocode which can solve your problem and evaluate its complexity. In this case, the comlpexity of the most obvious algorithm would be O(n^2), where n is the length of the string. This most obvious solution would be to check every substring, but maybe there are better algorithms: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_palindromic_substring
You send your function a string and two indexes, then immediately take the address of two indexes and proceeded to increment/decrement the indexes without any relation or regard to your string. That will never get you anywhere.
While it is fine to try and do all comparisons with indexes as integers, it is probably a bit easier to approach finding palindromes operating on strings and characters instead. You use the indexes to set the start and end position within the string. The indexes by themselves are just numbers. Your first and last should not hold the address to the intergers, they should hold the address of the first and last characters of your search string.
Below is a quick example of using the indexes to locate the start and end characters for your search. Note: I use p (pointer) for first and ep (end pointer) for your last. Look over the logic and let me know if you have questions. The program takes 3 arguments, the string, start and end indexes within the string (0 based indexes):
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <ctype.h>
#define MAXP 128
int get_palindrome (char *s, size_t i, size_t j);
int main (int argc, char **argv) {
if (argc < 4 ) {
fprintf (stderr, "error: insufficient input, usage: %s str i j\n", argv[0]);
return 1;
}
size_t i = atoi (argv[2]);
size_t j = atoi (argv[3]);
char palindrome[MAXP] = {0};
int len = get_palindrome (argv[1], i, j);
if (len > 0)
{
strncpy (palindrome, argv[1] + i, len);
printf ("\n palindrome: %s (%d chars)\n\n",
palindrome, len);
}
else
printf ("\n no palindrome for for given indexes.\n\n");
return 0;
}
int get_palindrome (char *s, size_t i, size_t j)
{
if (!s || *s == 0) return -1;
int len = 0;
char *p = s + i; /* set start/end pointers */
char *ep = s + j + 1;
char *sp = NULL;
int c = *ep; /* save char from string */
*ep = 0; /* null-terminate at end */
char *s2 = strdup (p); /* copy string to s2 */
*ep = c; /* replace original char */
p = s2; /* set s2 start/end ponters */
ep = s2 + j - i;
while (ep > p) /* check for palindrome */
{
if (toupper(*ep) != toupper(*p))
{
*ep = 0;
sp = NULL;
}
else if (!sp)
sp = p;
p++, ep--;
}
len = sp ? (int) strlen (sp) : -1; /* get length */
if (s2) free (s2); /* free copy of string */
return len; /* return len or -1 */
}
Output
$ ./bin/palindrome 1234abcdcba 4 10
palindrome: abcdcba (7 chars)
Note the use of size_t type instead of int for i & j. i & j are indexes and will not be negative for the purpose of this problem. Try to always choose your data type to best fit your data. It will help identify and prevent problems in your code.
Also note, you should make a copy of the string in the function (if you are concerned about preserving the original). Inserting null-terminating characters locating palindromes will alter the original string otherwise.
There is an easy to understand solution to find out longest palindrome in a string.
Key Concept: at the center of a palindrome, characters are always of the form
"....x y x...." or "......x x......"
step1: scan the string from start to end for the xyx or xx patterns and store the center indices in an auxiliary array.
step2: now around each center try to expand the string in both direction and store the lengths.
step3: return the max length.
This approach takes O(N2) order time.

Trying to put some digits into a char array

I'm trying to create a char array made of some letters and numbers (the function was way more complex initially but i kept simplifying it to figure out why it doesn't work properly). So i have a char array in which i put 2 chars, and try to add some numbers to it.
For a reason i can't figure out, the numbers do not get added to the array. It might be really stupid but I'm new to C so here's the simplified code. Any help is much appreciated, thanks!
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
char some_string[20];
char *make_str() {
some_string[0] = 'a';
some_string[1] = 'x';
int random = 0;
int rand_copy = 0;
random = (rand());
rand_copy = random;
int count = 2;
while ( rand_copy > 0 ) {
rand_copy = rand_copy / 10;
++count;
}
int i=2;
for (i=2; i<count; i++) {
some_string[i] = random%10;
random = random/10;
}
return (some_string);
}
int main(int argc, const char *argv[]) {
printf("the string is: %s\n",make_str());
return 0;
}
You have many problems:
resulting string is not zero-terminated. Add some_string[i] = '\0'; to fix this
character (char) is something like "a letter", but random % 10 produces a number (int) which when converted to character results in control code (ASCII characters 0-9 are control codes). You'd better use some_string[i] = (random % 10) + '0';
you're using fixed length string (20 characters), which may be enough, but it could lead to many problems. If you are a beginner and haven't learn dynamic memory allocation, than that's ok for now. But remember that fixed-length buffers are one of top-10 reasons for buggy C-code. And if you have to use fixed-length buffers (there are legitimate reason for doing this), ALLWAYS check if you are not overrunning the buffer. Use predefined constants for buffer length.
unless the whole point of your excercise is to try converting numbers to strings, use libc function like snprintf for printing anything into a string.
don't use global variable (some_string) and if you do (it's ok for a small example), there is no point in returning this value.
Slightly better version:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#define BUF_LENGTH 20
char some_string[BUF_LENGTH];
char *make_str() {
some_string[0] = 'a';
some_string[1] = 'x';
int random = rand();
int rand_copy = random;
int count = 2;
while (rand_copy > 0) {
rand_copy = rand_copy / 10;
++count;
}
int i;
for (i = 2; i < count; i++) {
/* check for buffer overflow. -1 is for terminating zero */
if (i >= BUF_LENGTH - 1) {
printf("error\n");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
some_string[i] = (random % 10) + '0';
random = random / 10;
}
/* zero-terminate the string */
some_string[i] = '\0';
return some_string;
}
int main(int argc, const char *argv[]) {
printf("the string is: %s\n",make_str());
return 0;
}

Grab all integers from irregular strings in C

I am looking for a (relatively) simple way to parse a random string and extract all of the integers from it and put them into an Array - this differs from some of the other questions which are similar because my strings have no standard format.
Example:
pt112parah salin10n m5:isstupid::42$%&%^*%7first3
I would need to eventually get an array with these contents:
112 10 5 42 7 3
And I would like a method more efficient then going character by character through a string.
Thanks for your help
A quick solution. I'm assuming that there are no numbers that exceed the range of long, and that there are no minus signs to worry about. If those are problems, then you need to do a lot more work analyzing the results of strtol() and you need to detect '-' followed by a digit.
The code does loop over all characters; I don't think you can avoid that. But it does use strtol() to process each sequence of digits (once the first digit is found), and resumes where strtol() left off (and strtol() is kind enough to tell us exactly where it stopped its conversion).
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <ctype.h>
int main(void)
{
const char data[] = "pt112parah salin10n m5:isstupid::42$%&%^*%7first3";
long results[100];
int nresult = 0;
const char *s = data;
char c;
while ((c = *s++) != '\0')
{
if (isdigit(c))
{
char *end;
results[nresult++] = strtol(s-1, &end, 10);
s = end;
}
}
for (int i = 0; i < nresult; i++)
printf("%d: %ld\n", i, results[i]);
return 0;
}
Output:
0: 112
1: 10
2: 5
3: 42
4: 7
5: 3
More efficient than going through character by character?
Not possible, because you must look at every character to know that it is not an integer.
Now, given that you have to go though the string character by character, I would recommend simply casting each character as an int and checking that:
//string tmp = ""; declared outside of loop.
//pseudocode for inner loop:
int intVal = (int)c;
if(intVal >=48 && intVal <= 57){ //0-9 are 48-57 when char casted to int.
tmp += c;
}
else if(tmp.length > 0){
array[?] = (int)tmp; // ? is where to add the int to the array.
tmp = "";
}
array will contain your solution.
Just because I've been writing Python all day and I want a break. Declaring an array will be tricky. Either you have to run it twice to work out how many numbers you have (and then allocate the array) or just use the numbers one by one as in this example.
NB the ASCII characters for '0' to '9' are 48 to 57 (i.e. consecutive).
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdbool.h>
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
char *input = "pt112par0ah salin10n m5:isstupid::42$%&%^*%7first3";
int length = strlen(input);
int value = 0;
int i;
bool gotnumber = false;
for (i = 0; i < length; i++)
{
if (input[i] >= '0' && input[i] <= '9')
{
gotnumber = true;
value = value * 10; // shift up a column
value += input[i] - '0'; // casting the char to an int
}
else if (gotnumber) // we hit this the first time we encounter a non-number after we've had numbers
{
printf("Value: %d \n", value);
value = 0;
gotnumber = false;
}
}
return 0;
}
EDIT: the previous verison didn't deal with 0
Another solution is to use the strtok function
/* strtok example */
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
int main ()
{
char str[] = "pt112parah salin10n m5:isstupid::42$%&%^*%7first3";
char * pch;
printf ("Splitting string \"%s\" into tokens:\n",str);
pch = strtok (str," abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz:$%&^*");
while (pch != NULL)
{
printf ("%s\n",pch);
pch = strtok (NULL, " abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz:$%&^*");
}
return 0;
}
Gives:
112
10
5
42
7
3
Perhaps not the best solution for this task, since you need to specify all characters that will be treated as a token. But it is an alternative to the other solutions.
And if you don't mind using C++ instead of C (usually there isn't a good reason why not), then you can reduce your solution to just two lines of code (using AXE parser generator):
vector<int> numbers;
auto number_rule = *(*(axe::r_any() - axe::r_num())
& *axe::r_num() >> axe::e_push_back(numbers));
now test it:
std::string str = "pt112parah salin10n m5:isstupid::42$%&%^*%7first3";
number_rule(str.begin(), str.end());
std::for_each(numbers.begin(), numbers.end(), [](int i) { std::cout << "\ni=" << i; });
and sure enough, you got your numbers back.
And as a bonus, you don't need to change anything when parsing unicode wide strings:
std::wstring str = L"pt112parah salin10n m5:isstupid::42$%&%^*%7first3";
number_rule(str.begin(), str.end());
std::for_each(numbers.begin(), numbers.end(), [](int i) { std::cout << "\ni=" << i; });
and sure enough, you got the same numbers back.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <math.h>
int main(void)
{
char *input = "pt112par0ah salin10n m5:isstupid::42$%&%^*%7first3";
char *pos = input;
int integers[strlen(input) / 2]; // The maximum possible number of integers is half the length of the string, due to the smallest number of digits possible per integer being 1 and the smallest number of characters between two different integers also being 1
unsigned int numInts= 0;
while ((pos = strpbrk(pos, "0123456789")) != NULL) // strpbrk() prototype in string.h
{
sscanf(pos, "%u", &(integers[numInts]));
if (integers[numInts] == 0)
pos++;
else
pos += (int) log10(integers[numInts]) + 1; // requires math.h
numInts++;
}
for (int i = 0; i < numInts; i++)
printf("%d ", integers[i]);
return 0;
}
Finding the integers is accomplished via repeated calls to strpbrk() on the offset pointer, with the pointer being offset again by an amount equaling the number of digits in the integer, calculated by finding the base-10 logarithm of the integer and adding 1 (with a special case for when the integer is 0). No need to use abs() on the integer when calculating the logarithm, as you stated the integers will be non-negative. If you wanted to be more space-efficient, you could use unsigned char integers[] rather than int integers[], as you stated the integers will all be <256, but that isn't a necessity.

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