How to take first letter from C string? - c

Question

I want to take the first letter from my firstname string variable and add it to the second letter of the lastname variable.
My program so far is:
#include <stdio.h>
main() {
char firstname [256];
char lastname [256];
printf("What's your first name?: ");
scanf("%c",&firstname);
printf("What is your last name? ");
scanf("%s",&lastname);
printf("\nYour school.edu e-mail address is: %c%s2#school.edu",firstname,lastname);
return 0;
}
However, I would like for my code to take the first initial (the first letter of the first name) and store it into the firstname variable.

Answer 1

As strings are array of characters, you need to take the first element from the array:
char firstname_initial;
firstname_initial = firstname[0]
Also note that since lastname and firstname are buffers, you don't need to pass a pointer to them in scanf:
scanf( "%s", firstname );
scanf( "%s", lastname );
And one last thing - scanf is a dangerous function and you should not use it.

Answer 2

Suppose the user types:
Michael
in response to the first prompt. The %c format reads the M; the %s format reads ichael without bothering to get any new data.
Also, you should not be passing &firstname or &lastname; you should be passing just firstname and lastname to scanf(). The difference is in the type; with the ampersand, you're passing a char (*)[256] which is not the same as the char * that scanf() expects. You get away with it, but 'get away with it' is the operative term.
Use a %s format (or, better, %255s format) for the two scanf() calls. Then pass firstname[0] and lastname to printf(). You might want to think about using tolower() from <ctype.h> on the first letter, and maybe on the last name too.
This is a reasonable approximation to a good program:
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void)
{
char firstname[256];
char lastname[256];
printf("What's your first name? ");
if (scanf("%255s", firstname) != 1)
return 1;
printf("What's your last name? ");
if (scanf("%255s", lastname) != 1)
return 1;
printf("Your school.edu e-mail address is: %c%s2#school.edu\n",
firstname[0], lastname);
return 0;
}
It avoids quite a lot of problems, one way or another. It is not completely foolproof, but most people won't run into problems with it.

Answer 3

I think you want the variable firstname to store only the initial.
So that firstname act like string.
firstname[1] = '\0'; //mark the end of string on second character
printf("\nYour school.edu e-mail address is: %s%s2#school.edu",firstname,lastname);

Answer 4

#include <stdio.h>
#include<string.h>
main() {
char firstname [256];
char lastname [256];
char str [50];
printf("What's your first name?: ");
scanf("%s",firstname);
printf("What is your last name? ");
scanf("%s",lastname);
str = strcpy(str, firstname[0]);
str = strcpy(str,lastname[1]);
printf("\nYour school.edu e-mail address is: %s2#school.edu",str);
return 0;
}

Answer 5

Copy first char from c string
char extractedchar = '0';
extractedchar=myoldstring[0];
Note : the char '0' is there just to test later in the application

Answer 6

Assuming expected input:
fname = Batman
lname = Joker
Expected Output:
Your school.edu e-mail address is: BJBker2#school.edu
Try this:
void main( void )
{
char fname = 0;
char lname[256] = {0};
printf("Enter firstname\n");
scanf("%c", &fname);
printf("Enter lastname\n");
scanf("%s", lname);
lname[1] = fname;
printf("Your school.edu e-mail address is: %c%s2#school.edu\n", fname, lname);
return;
}