Splitting a string in a file into array in c - c

Question

I'm new to programming,and I have a small problem.
I have a file named questions.txt containing a string of questions, I want to read the string from the file then split it into array with each question having an index, for example a[i] = "Question i" etc.
I did so many tries, but it always ends up reading the last line in the file, when write a loop the program stops working.
This is what i came up with, it's all probably wrong:
char str[200];
char *ptr;
FILE * fp = fopen("questions.txt", "r");
while(fgets(str, 200, fp)!= NULL)
printf("%s", str);
ptr = strtok(str, "\n");
while(ptr != NULL)
{
ptr = strtok(str, "\n");
printf("%s\n", ptr);
ptr = strtok(NULL, "\n");
}
fclose(fp);
The file is:
what is your course?
who is your instructor?
Output i get is:
what is your course?
who is your instructor?
who is your instructor?

Answer 1

I want to read the string from the file then split it into an array with each question having an index...
Let me say, that you don't have a string to split into array.
You should better have a file with a one string of questions like this:
what is your course?:who is your instructor? // `:` is some kind of delimiter
I can suppose that you want to make a vector (one dimensional array) of the file. And in that vector, each element will contain a question from the file. Right?
I can share with you a function from my library I've made at the university. I'll write here a simple program. But it uses delimiters - :, for example. You can modify this function for working without delimiters -- this only depends on you.
In two words, this little program does the following:
// BEFORE: you have a string that ends with a null terminating character.
Question_1_abcbadsad:QUestion_2asasdasd:Question_3sldasdsa\n
^
here ^<< printing 'string' stops
// AFTER: an array of questions. Each of them ends with a null terminating character.
Question_1_abcbadsad\nQUestion_2asasdasd\nQuestion_3sldasdsa\n
^
^<< printing argz[0] will stop here
main.c
#include "argz.h"
int main()
{
error_t func;
char *argz; // pointer to a vector; to an array of questions
size_t argz_len;
// size of that vector (the size of the string you've got from the file)
// Consider `string` to be your `ptr`. You read a string from the file so
// `ptr` will point to the string.
char *string = "Question_1_abcbadsad:QUestion_2asasdasd:Question_3sldasdsa";
// Here `:` is a separate character.
func = argz_create_sep(string, ':', &argz, &argz_len);
if(func == OK)
argz_print(argz, argz_len);
else
printf("ERROR\n");
return 0;
}
argz.c
#include "argz.h"
error_t argz_create_sep (const char *string, int sep, char **argz, size_t *argz_len)
{
int i;
char *ch;
int len = strlen(string);
if(len==0)
return ENOMEM;
*argz = (char*) malloc (sizeof(char)*(len + 1));
strcpy(*argz, string);
*argz_len = strlen(*argz);
ch = *argz;
for(i = 0; i < len; i++) {
if(*ch == sep) *ch='\0';
ch++;
}
return OK;
}
void argz_print(const char *argz, size_t argz_len)
{
const char *ch;
int i;
ch = argz;
for(i = 0; i < argz_len; i++) {
if(*ch == '\0')
printf("\n");
else
printf("%c",*ch);
ch++;
}
printf("\n\n\n");
}
argz.h
#include <stddef.h> // for size_t
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
typedef enum {OK, ENOMEM} error_t;
/* function prototypes */
error_t argz_create_sep (const char *string, int sep, char **argz, size_t *argz_len);
void argz_print (const char *argz, size_t argz_len);

Answer 2

I think what you want is something like this:
#include <stdio.h>
int main(){
int i=0;
char str[200],s='1'; //s is give a random character
FILE * fp = fopen("questions.txt", "r");
while (s!=EOF){ //works until s= the end of file
s=getc(fp); //s starts to receive characters from text file
str[i]=s; //each character of text is placed into the string array
i++;
}
str[i]='\0'; //s reached EOF so lets indicate where we stopped in the string
fclose(fp);
printf("%s\n",str);
//EDIT: changing 1D str to 2D str2
char str2[10][200]; // 10 for max no. of questions, 200 - length of each question
int j=0,k=0;
i=0;
for(j=0;j<200;j++){
str2[i][k]=str[j];
k++;
if (str[j]=='\n'){
i++;
k=0;}
}
for(i=0;i<10;i++) //prints your 2D string array
printf("%s",str2[i]); //after the last question there will be junk
return 0;
}