I am really desperate trying to figure out how can I read char with value -1/255 because for most functions this means EOF. For example if I enter all characters from extended ASCII from low to high (decimal value) I end up with -1/255 which is EOF so I will not get it to array. I created small code to express my problem.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#define BUFFERSIZE 1024
int main(void){
char c;
unsigned int *array = (unsigned int*)calloc(BUFFERSIZE,sizeof(unsigned int)), i = 0;
while (1){
c = fgetc(stdin);
if (c == EOF)
break;
array[i] = c;
i++;
}
array[i] = 0;
unsigned char *string = (unsigned char *)malloc(i);
for(int j = 0;j < i;j++)
string[j] = array[j];
free(array);
//working with "string"
return 0;
}
I could mode
if (c == EOF)
break;
like this
c = fgetc(stdin);
array[i] = c;
i++;
if (c == EOF)
break;
but ofcourse, program will read control character that user input from keyboard too (for example Ctrl+D - Linux). I tried opening stdin as binary but I found out that posix systems carries all files as binary. I am using QT, GCC and Ubuntu. I tried fread, read, fgets but I ended up the same. Simply said, I need to read everything I enter on stdin and put it into char array except when I enter control character (Ctrl+D) to end reading. Any advices appreciated.
Edit: As noted in the comment by #TonyB you should not declare c as char because fgetc() returns int, so changing it to int c; should make it possible to store EOF in c.
I didn't see that you declared c as char c; so all the credit goes to #TonyB.
Original Answer: Although the problem was addressed in the comments, and I added the solution to this answer, I think you are confused, EOF is not a character, it's a special value returned by some I/O functions to indicate the end of an stream.
You should never assume that it's vaule is -1, it often is but there is a macro for a reason, so you should always rely on the fact that these functions return EOF not -1.
Since there is no ascii representation for the value -1 you can't input that as a character, you can however parse the input string {'-', '1', '\0'}, and convert it to a number if you need to.
Also, Do not cast the return value of malloc().
Related
I read a snippet of code from C Primer Plus, and tried hard to understand *find = '\0';
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
char *s_gets(char *st, int n);
struct book {
char title[40];
char author[40];
float value;
}
int main(void) {
...
}
char *s_gets(char *st, int n) {
char *ret_val;
char *find;
ret_val = fgets(st, n, stdin);
if (ret_val) {
find = strchr(st, '\n'); //look for newline
if (find) // if address is not null
*find = '\0'; //place a null character there
else
while (getchar() != '\n')
continue; //dispose rest of line
}
return ret_val;
}
For what purpose should find = strchr(st, '\n'); be followed by *find = '\0';
I searched strchr but found it an odd name although could get idea about it's function. Does the name strchr come from stringcharacter?
The code using find = strchr(s, '\n') and what follows zaps the newline that was read by fgets() and included in the result string, if there is indeed a newline in the string. Often, you can use an alternative, more compact, notation:
s[strcspn(s, "\n")] = '\0';
which is written without any conditional code visible. (If there's no newline, the null byte overwrites the existing null byte.)
The overall objective seems to be to make s_gets() behave more like an antique, dangerous and no longer standard function, gets(), which reads up to and including a newline, but does not include the newline in the result. The gets() function has other design flaws which make it a function to be forgotten — never use it!
The code shown also detects when no newline was read and then goes into a dangerous loop to read the rest of the line. The loop should be:
else
{
int c;
while ((c = getchar()) != EOF && c != '\n')
;
}
It is important to detect EOF; not all files end with a newline. It is also important to detect EOF reliably, which means this code has to use int c (whereas the original flawed loop could avoid using a variable like c). If this code carelessly used char c instead of int c, it could either fail to detect EOF altogether (if plain char is an unsigned type) or it could give a false positive for EOF when the data being read contains a byte with value 0xFF (if plain char is a signed type).
Note that using strcspn() directly as shown is not an option in this code because then you can't detect whether there was a newline in the data; you merely know there is no newline in the data after the call. As Antti Haapala points out, you could capture the result of strcspn() and then decide whether a newline was found and therefore whether to read to the end of line (or end of file if there is no EOL before the EOF).
I have written a small script to detect the full value from the user input with the getchar() function in C. As getchar() only returns the first character i tried to loop through it... The code I have tried myself is:
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
char a = getchar();
int b = strlen(a);
for(i=0; i<b; i++) {
printf("%c", a[i]);
}
return 0;
}
But this code does not give me the full value of the user input.
You can do looping part this way
int c;
while((c = getchar()) != '\n' && c != EOF)
{
printf("%c", c);
}
getchar() returns int, not char. And it only returns one char per iteration. It returns, however EOF once input terminates.
You do not check for EOF (you actually cannot detect that instantly when getchar() to char).
a is a char, not an array, neither a string, you cannot apply strlen() to it.
strlen() returns size_t, which is unsigned.
Enable most warnings, your compiler wants to help you.
Sidenote: char can be signed or unsigned.
Read a C book! Your code is soo broken and you confused multiple basic concepts. - no offense!
For a starter, try this one:
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void)
{
int ch;
while ( 1 ) {
ch = getchar();
x: if ( ch == EOF ) // done if input terminated
break;
printf("%c", ch); // %c takes an int-argument!
}
return 0;
}
If you want to terminate on other strings, too, #include <string.h> and replace line x: by:
if ( ch == EOF || strchr("\n\r\33", ch) )
That will terminate if ch is one of the chars listed in the string literal (here: newline, return, ESCape). However, it will also match ther terminating '\0' (not sure if you can enter that anyway).
Storing that into an array is shown in good C books (at least you will learn how to do it yourself).
Point 1: In your code, a is not of array type. you cannot use array subscript operator on that.
Point 2: In your code, strlen(a); is wrong. strlen() calculates the length of a string, i.e, a null terminated char array. You need to pass a pointer to a string to strlen().
Point 3: getchar() does not loop for itself. You need to put getchar() inside a loop to keep on reading the input.
Point 4: getchar() retruns an int. You should change the variable type accordingly.
Point 5: The recommended signature of main() is int main(void).
Keeping the above points in mind,we can write a pesudo-code, which will look something like
#include <stdio.h>
#define MAX 10
int main(void) // nice signature. :-)
{
char arr[MAX] = {0}; //to store the input
int ret = 0;
for(int i=0; i<MAX; i++) //don't want to overrrun array
{
if ( (ret = getchar())!= EOF) //yes, getchar() returns int
{
arr[i] = ret;
printf("%c", arr[i]);
}
else
;//error handling
}
return 0;
}
See here LIVE DEMO
getchar() : get a char (one character) not a string like you want
use fgets() : get a string or gets()(Not recommended) or scanf() (Not recommended)
but first you need to allocate the size of the string : char S[50]
or use a malloc ( #include<stdlib.h> ) :
char *S;
S=(char*)malloc(50);
It looks like you want to read a line (your question mentions a "full value" but you don't explain what that means).
You might simply use fgets for that purpose, with the limitation that you have to provide a fixed size line buffer (and handle - or ignore - the case when a line is larger than the buffer). So you would code
char linebuf[80];
memset (linebuf, 0, sizeof(linbuf)); // clear the buffer
char* lp = fgets(linebuf, sizeof(linebuf), stdin);
if (!lp) {
// handle end-of-file or error
}
else if (!strchr(lp, '\n')) {
/// too short linebuf
}
If you are on a POSIX system (e.g. Linux or MacOSX), you could use getline (which dynamically allocates a buffer). If you want some line edition facility on Linux, consider also readline(3)
Avoid as a plague the obsolete gets
Once you have read a line into some buffer, you can parse it (e.g. using manual parsing, or sscanf -notice the useful %n conversion specification, and test the result count of sscanf-, or strtol(3) -notice that it can give you the ending pointer- etc...).
So I am a very beginner to C programming (I have used Ruby, Python and Haskell before) and I am having trouble getting the most simple thing to work in C (probably because of all the manual memory stuff). Anyway, what I am trying to do is (using simple constructs) make a script that just echoes what the user inputs to the console.
e.g. user inputs hi, console prints hi.
This is what I came up with.
Also, I haven't really mastered pointers, so none of that.
// echo C script
int echo();
int main() {
echo();
return 0;
}
int echo() {
char input[500];
while (1) {
if (scanf("%[^\n]", input) > 0) {
printf("%s\n", input);
}
input[0] = 0;
}
return 1;
}
I realize that there is a bunch of bad practices here, like setting a giant string array, but that is just for simplifying it.
Anyway, my problem is that it repeats the first input then the input freezes. As far as I can tell, it freezes during the while loop (1 is never returned).
Any help would be appreciated.
Oh, and using TCC as the compiler.
You don't need an array for echo
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void)
{
int c;
while((c = getchar()) != EOF) putchar(c);
return 0;
}
It's fine that you have such a large string allocated, as long as it's possible for users to input a string of that length. What I would use for input is fgets (read this for more information). Proper usage in your situation, given that you still would like to use the string of size 500, would be:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
int echo(){
char input[500];
while(fgets(input, 500, STDIN)){ //read from STDIN (aka command-line)
printf("%s\n", input); //print out what user typed in
memset(input, 0, strlen(input)); //reset string to all 0's
}
return 1;
}
Note that changing the value of 500 to whatever smaller number (I would normally go with some power of 2 by convention, like 512, but it doesn't really matter) will limit the length of the user's input to that number. Also note that I didn't test my code but it should work.
scanf("%[^\n]", input
Should be:
scanf("%s",input)
Then after your if you should do:
memset(input,0,500);
There are many ways of accomplishing this task however the easiest would be to read from stdin one byte at a time and output that byte to stdout as you process each byte.
Snippet:
#include <stdio.h>
int main( void ) {
// Iterates until EOF is sent.
for ( int byte = getchar(); byte != EOF; byte = getchar() ) {
// Outputs to stdout the byte.
putchar( byte );
}
return 0;
}
Remark:
You must store the byte that you are reading through stdin in an integer. This is because you are not guaranteed that char is signed or unsigned, there are in fact 3 char types in C (char, signed char and unsigned char). Include the limits library to determine whether a char is signed or not in your environment.
You must compile using the C99 standards, otherwise move the declaration of byte outside of the for loop.
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I am stumped on how to store strings in an array in C, with each character kept separately. As an example, if the user inputs hellop, I want to store it in a given array, say userText, with userText[0] = h, userText[1] = e, userText[2] = l, and so on. I know this is easy stuff, but I'm still new. So if anyone could help, it would be great. Please explain how to do this using pointers.
#include<stdio.h>
void main()
{
char a[10],c;
int i=0;
while((c=getchar())!='\n')
{
scanf("%c",&a[i++]);
c=getchar();
}
for(i=0;i<11;i++)
printf("%c",a[i]);
}
The program outputs some garbage value (eoeoeoeo\363) when I type in hellop.
To read input I recommend using the fgets function. It's a nice, safe alternative to scanf.
First let's declare a buffer like so:
char user_input[20];
Then we can get user input from the command line in the following manner:
fgets(user_input, 20, stdin);
This will store a maximum of 20 characters into the string from the standard input and it will ensure it is null-terminated. The fact that we've limited the input to the size of the array declared earlier ensures that there's no possibility of buffer overruns.
Then let's clear the pesky newline that's been entered into the string using strlen:
user_input[strlen(user_input) -1] = '\0';
As strlen returns the size of the string up to the null terminator but without it, we can be sure at that position lies the newline character (\n). We replace it with a null-terminator(\0) so that the string ends there.
Finally, let's print it using printf:
printf("The user has entered '%s'\n", user_input);
To use fgets and printf you will need to declare the following header:
#include <stdio.h>
For strlen we need another header, namely:
#include <string.h>
Job done.
P.S. If I may address the code you've added to your question.
main is normally declared as int main rather than void main which also requires that main returns a value of some sort. For small apps normally return 0; is put just before the closing brace. This return is used to indicate to the OS if the program executed successfully (0 means everything was OK, non-zero means there was a problem).
You are not null-terminating your string which means that if you were to read in any other way other than with a careful loop, you will have problems.
You take input from the user twice - once with getchar and then with scanf.
If you insist on using your code I've modified it a bit:
#include<stdio.h>
int main()
{
char a[10];
int i=0;
while( (a[i++]=getchar()) != '\n' && i < 10) /* take input from user until it's a newline or equal to 10 */
;
a[i] = '\0'; /* null-terminate the string */
i = 0;
while(a[i] != '\0') /* print until we've hit \0 */
printf("%c",a[i++]);
return 0;
}
It should now work.
To read a string into char array:
char *a = NULL;
int read;
size_t len;
read = getline(&a, &len, stdin);
//free memory
free(a);
Your code is this (except I've added a bunch of spaces to improve its readability):
1 #include <stdio.h>
2 void main()
3 {
4 char a[10], c;
5 int i = 0;
6 while ((c = getchar()) != '\n')
7 {
8 scanf("%c", &a[i++]);
9 c = getchar();
10 }
11 for (i = 0; i < 11; i++)
12 printf("%c", a[i]);
13 }
Line-by-line analysis:
OK (now I've added the space between #include and <stdio.h>).
The main() function returns an int.
OK (it is hard to get an open brace wrong).
Since the return value of getchar() is an int, you need to declare c separately as an int.
OK.
Needs to account for EOF; should be while ((c = getchar()) != EOF && c != '\n'). You're still very open to buffer overflow, though.
OK.
Not OK. This reads another character from standard input, and doesn't check for EOF.
Not OK. This too reads another character from standard input. But when you go back to the top of the loop, you read another character. So, as things stand, if you type abcdefg at the program, c is assigned 'a' in the loop control, then a[0] is assigned 'b', then c is assigned 'c', then the loop repeats with a[1] getting 'e'. If I'd typed 6 characters plus newline, the loop would terminate cleanly. Because I claimed I typed 7 characters, the third iteration assigns 'g' to c, which is not newline, so a[2] gets the newline, and the program waits for more input with the c = getchar(); statement at the end of the loop.
OK (ditto close braces).
Not OK. You don't take into account early termination of the loop, and you unconditionally access a non-existent element a[10] of the array a (which only has elements 0..9 — C is not BASIC!).
OK.
You probably need to output a newline after the for loop. You should return 0; at the end of main().
Because your input buffer is so short, it will be best to code a length check. If you'd used char a[4096];, I'd probably not have bothered you about it (though even then, there is a small risk of buffer overflow with potentially undesirable consequences). All of this leads to:
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void)
{
char a[10];
int c;
int i;
int n;
for (i = 0; i < sizeof(a) && ((c=getchar()) != EOF && c != '\n')
a[i++] = c;
n = i;
for (i = 0; i < n; i++)
printf("%c", a[i]);
putchar('\n');
return 0;
}
Note that neither the original nor the revised code null terminates the string. For the given usage, that is OK. For general use, it is not.
The final for loop in the revised code and the following putchar() could be replaced (safely) by:
printf("%.*s\n", n, a);
This is safe because the length is specified so printf() won't go beyond the initialized data. To create a null terminated string, the input code needs to leave enough space for it:
for (i = 0; i < sizeof(a)-1 && ((c=getchar()) != EOF && c != '\n')
a[i++] = c;
a[i] = '\0';
(Note the sizeof(a)-1!)
I'm attempting to use the getc() function to copy the contents of one file into another. But I'm making an unknown logical error because the output of the following program is a bunch of garbage.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
int main()
{
FILE *f;
FILE *write;
f = fopen("nums.csv","r");
write = fopen("numsWrite.dat","w");
char tempChar;
int i;
for(i = 0; (tempChar = getc(f)) != EOF; i++)
{
tempChar = getc(f);
fprintf(write,"%c",tempChar);
}
fprintf(write,"\n");
fclose(f);
fclose(write);
return 0;
}
content of nums.csv is:
1256,2548,35151,15,56,38
program returns:
2624,55,55,8
There are several problems with your code.
int main() should be int main(void); this is a minor issue that almost certainly won't hurt anything, but the latter is more correct.
You don't check whether the fopen() calls succeed.
You're using i to count the characters you read, but you never do anything with its value.
The getc() function returns a result of type int, so you should definitely make tempChar an int. The reason for this is that it can return either a valid character value (which will fit in a char object) or the value EOF which is typically -1. By storing the result of getc() in a char object, either you'll never see EOF (if plain char is unsigned), or you won't be able to distinguish EOF from a valid input character.
In a comment on Razvan's answer, you said you changed the test to tempChar != EOF. Apart from the problem I explained above, on the first iteration of the loop tempChar has not been initialized, and the result of the comparison is unpredictable.
The conventional way to write an input loop using getc() is:
int c;
while ((c = getc(f)) != EOF) {
/* do something with c */
}
As a matter of style, write is not a very good name for a FILE*. For one thing, there's a function of that name (defined by POSIX, not by C, but it's still potentially confusing). You might call the FILE* objects in and out instead.
You call getc two times: once in the for condition and once in the for body. Delete this line: tempChar = getc(f); and try again.