changing values in memory is not working pointers - c

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
void reverse(char * str[]) {
int i;
int reverse = sizeof(str);
for(i=0;i<=sizeof(str);i++){
*str[i]=*str[reverse];
reverse--;
}
}
main() {
char *word;
printf("Enter a word please=>");
scanf("%s",word);
reverse(word);
printf("%s",word);
}
I am trying to get a string input and pass it to reverse() function to reverse the word entered i.e ("abcd" -> "dcba"), however i am having some difficulty using pointers.
I am not able to change the values held by the char *word in the memory.

You haven't allocated any storage for word. Change
char *word;
scanf("%s",word);
to
char word[20];
scanf("%19s",word);
There are also a number of issues with reverse
Its signature accepts an array of strings rather than a single string (an array of chars).
You need to use strlen to calculate the length of a string. sizeof tells you the size of a char** on your platform.
You reverse the string twice so will currently reverse it then reinstate the original order.
Your reverse algorithm would include reversing the nul terminator. This wouldn't normally be considered part of a string and needs to stay at the end of the array to mark the end of the string.
The following (untested) function should be closer to what you want
void reverse(char* str) {
int i;
int len = strlen(str);
for (int i=0; i<len/2; i++) {
char tmp = str[i];
str[i] = str[len-i-1];
str[len-i-1] = tmp;
}
}

Related

function for reversing an array in C (K&R 2nd ed.)

Trying to do Exercise 1-19 of K&R 2nd ed., e.g. writing a function to reverse a string. I thought I managed, but the print output looks strange :-) If I use STRINGSIZE 5 the output is
Original String: hello
Reversed String: ollehhello. If I use STRINGSIZE 6 to keep in mind the '\0' string end character and modify the while-loop to while ((outputString[STRINGSIZE - (i + 2)] = inputString[i]) != '\0'), then I get Original String: hello
Reversed String: olleh?hello, I guess the ? is some random character coming from a '\0' added to the reversed string in the while-loop at position 5; but hello is again added. Could anyone explain how come hello gets added to the end of olleh and how can I get rid of it so that I only get the proper reversed string ?
Here is the code:
#include <stdio.h>
#define STRINGSIZE 5
void reverseString (char inputString[], char outputString[]);
int main(void) {
char stringToReverse[] = "hello";
char reversedString[STRINGSIZE];
reverseString(stringToReverse, reversedString);
printf("Original String: %s\nReversed String: %s\n", stringToReverse, reversedString);
}
void reverseString (char inputString[], char outputString[]) {
int i;
i = 0;
while ((outputString[STRINGSIZE - (i + 1)] = inputString[i]) != '\0')
++i;
}
First, the character array reversedString[] does not have enough space to store the null terminator of the string "hello". One option is to use a variable length array here:
char reversedString[strlen(stringToReverse) + 1];
VLAs were introduced in C99, and made optional in C11. As I remember it, K&R does not include coverage of variable length arrays, since even the 2nd edition was published before this.
Another option that would be compatible with C89 is to use the sizeof operator:
char stringToReverse[] = "hello";
char reversedString[sizeof stringToReverse];
Here, the result from the sizeof operator is known at compile time, and can be used in the declaration of a fixed size array. This size includes space for the null terminator, in contrast to the result from strlen("hello"). Note that this would not work with char *stringToReverse = "hello";, since then the sizeof operator would give the size of a pointer. This also would not work if stringToReverse had been passed into a function first, since then the array name would have decayed to a pointer to the first element of stringToReverse.
In the reverseString() function, the length of inputString needs to be determined (since STRINGSIZE is no longer being used); this can be done with strlen(), or in a loop. Then, critically, the function must be certain to add a null terminator (\0) to outputString[] before returning. Also note that a return statement has been added to the end of main() to make this truly C89 compatible:
#include <stdio.h>
void reverseString (char inputString[], char outputString[]);
int main(void) {
char stringToReverse[] = "hello";
char reversedString[sizeof stringToReverse];
reverseString(stringToReverse, reversedString);
printf("Original String: %s\nReversed String: %s\n",
stringToReverse, reversedString);
return 0;
}
void reverseString(char inputString[], char outputString[])
{
int length = 0;
int i = 0;
/* Get inputString length; or use strlen() */
while (inputString[length] != '\0') {
++length;
}
/* Copy to outputString[] in reverse */
while (i < length) {
outputString[i] = inputString[(length - i) - 1];
++i;
}
/* Add null terminator */
outputString[i] = '\0';
}
First I'll suggest that you change this line:
char reversedString[STRINGSIZE];
to
char reversedString[strlen(stringToReverse) + 1]; // + 1 to make room for the string termination
Then I would do something like:
void reverseString (char inputString[], char outputString[]) {
int i;
int len = strlen(inputString);
for(i=0; i<len; ++i)
{
outputString[len-i-1] = inputString[i];
}
outputString[len] = '\0'; // Terminate the string
}

C: reverse string function not affecting pointer

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int reverse(char *, int);
main()
{
char *word = "Thanks for your help";
reverse(word, strlen(word));
printf("%s", word);
getchar();
}
int reverse(char *line, int len)
{
int i, j;
char *newline = malloc(strlen(line));
for (i = len - 1, j = 0 ; i >= 0; i--, j++)
{
newline[j] = line[i];
}
newline[j] = '\0';
line = &newline;
}
Hey folks. I've got a simple C question that I can't seem to solve.
The program above is meant to take in a string and print it out backwards. Reverse is the function by which this is done.
The issue, specifically, is that when I print word in main(), the string appears unchanged. I've attempted to make the address of line the address of newline, but it doesn't have any effect.
int reverse(char *line, int len)
{
int i, j;
char *newline = malloc(strlen(line));
for (i = len - 1, j = 0 ; i >= 0; i--, j++)
{
newline[j] = line[i];
}
newline[j] = '\0';
line = &newline; // Your problem is here
}
You're merely assigning to the local line pointer. This has no effect on the calling function whatsoever.
Consider instead:
char *reverse(char *line, int len)
{
// ...
return newline;
}
Additional advice:
Turn on compiler warnings, and heed them. You've got lots of little things wrong (e.g. reverse isn't currently returning anything, but is declared as returning int).
Given that the first argument of reverse is a pointer to a C string (NUL-terminated), there's no need to take a length argument as well.
A reverse function doesn't necessarily need to be defined as returning a copy of the string, reversed. It could instead reverse a string in-place. Note that you cannot pass a string literal to a function like this, as they are read-only.
Here's how I would write this:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
void reverse(char *str)
{
size_t i, j;
for (i = strlen(str) - 1, j = 0 ; i > j; i--, j++)
{
// Swap characters
char c = str[i];
str[i] = str[j];
str[j] = c;
}
}
int main(void)
{
// Mutable string allocated on the stack;
// we cannot just pass a string literal to reverse().
char str[] = "Here is a test string";
reverse(str);
printf("Result: \"%s\"\n", str);
return 0;
}
Note that the for loop condition is i > j, because we want each to only traverse half the array, and not swap each character twice.
Result:
$ ./a.exe
Result: "gnirts tset a si ereH"
Take a look at the code below:
void addOne(int a) {
int newA = a + 1;
a = newA;
}
int main() {
int num = 5;
addOne(num);
printf("%d\n", num);
}
Do you see why that will print 5, and not 6? It's because when you pass num to addOne, you actually make a copy of num. When addOne changes a to newA, it is changing the copy (called a), not the original variable, num. C has pass-by-value semantics.
Your code suffers from the same problem (and a couple other things). When you call reverse, a copy of word is made (not a copy of the string, but a copy of the character pointer, which points to the string). When you change line to point to your new string, newLine, you are not actually changing the passed-in pointer; you are changing the copy of the pointer.
So, how should you implement reverse? It depends: there are a couple options.
reverse could return a newly allocated string containing the original string, reversed. In this case, your function signature would be char *reverse, instead of int reverse.
reverse could modify the original string in place. That is, you never allocate a new string, and simply move the characters of the original string around. This works, in general, but not in your case because char pointers initialized with string literals do not necessarily point to writable memory.
reverse could actually change the passed-in pointer to point at a new string (what you are trying to do in your current code). To do this, you'd have to write a function void reverse(char **pointerToString). Then you could assign *pointerToString = newLine;. But this is not great practice. The original passed-in argument is now inaccessible, and if it was malloc'd, it can't be freed.

C function to capitalize first letter of words in an array

I'm pretty new to C and am hitting a wall when creating the below function. I want to use this function to make the first letter of a word upper case for a static character array (char string[]. It looks ok to my eye, but I'm getting some syntax errors which are probably pretty basic.
compiler errors:
error: invalid conversion from const char' toconst char*'
initializing argument 1 of `size_t strlen(const char*)'
assignment of read-only location
void Cap(char string[]){
int i;
int x = strlen(string);
for (i=1;i<x;i++){
if (isalpha(string[i]) && string[i-1] == ' '){
// only first letters of a word.
string[i]= toupper(string[i]);
}if (isalpha(string[0]))
{
string[0]=toupper(string[0]);
}
}
}
you might want to run strlen(string) - as strlen(string[i]) is trying to get the length of a single char.
I will also point out your braces don't match ...
if (isalpha(string[i])){
string[i]= toupper(string[i]);
Remove brace on the if line or put a close brace after your assigning statement.
I took your code and tried to compile it. Well, it would be nice to see compilable code the next time. Here is one with comments.
#include <stdio.h> // Now I am able to use printf.
#include <string.h> // I was not able to use strlen without this...
void Cap(char string[]){
int i;
int x = strlen(string); // You want to get the length of the whole string.
for (i=1;i<x;i++){
if (isalpha(string[i]) && string[i-1] == ' '){
// only first letters of a word.
string[i]= toupper(string[i]);
}
}
}
main(){
char string[] = "text with lowercase words.";
Cap(string);
printf("%s",string);
};
Still the first word of the text is lowercase. This is a task for you.
You're missing the closing curly brace for your if statement. This might just be a typo in the question, but mentioning it just in case.
Your function is declared void. This means it returns nothing. Any return statement should have nothing after the word since the function returns nothing, and in many cases you won't have a return statement at all.
However, the biggest issue is that this isn't an array of strings. It's an array of chars, which is just one string. char* string and char string[] both (potentially) refer to an array of characters, which makes up a single string. You would need to use another level of indirection to refer to an array of array of characters: char** strings, char* strings[], or char strings[][]. The last form would require you specify how long all the strings could be, so you'd usually only use the first two.
The problem here is that you are passing in a single string, not an array of strings.
Basically in C, a string is an array of chars, hence an array of strings is a two dimensional array like so:
const char* strings[];
There are a few other issues with the code. You haven't initialized i before using it.
A alternate approach: (write a function)
1) (optional) Allocate memory for new buffer of same length for results in calling function.
2) In function - Set first char of new string to upper case version of original string
3) Walk through the string searching for spaces.
4) For each space, Set next char of new string to upper case of char in original string
5) Loop on 4) until NULL detected
6) Free any allocated memory in calling program.
Code example:
void capitalize(char *str, char *new)
{
int i=0;
new[i] = toupper(str[0]);//first char to upper case
i++;//increment after every look
while(str[i] != '\0')
{
if(isspace(str[i]))
{
new[i] = str[i];
new[i+1] = toupper(str[i+1]);//set char after space to upper case
i+=2;//look twice, increment twice
}
else
{
new[i] = str[i];//for no-space-found, just copy char to new string
i++;//increment after every look
}
}
}
This should work just fine.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
capital(char s[])
{
int i;
for(i=0; i<strlen(s); i++)
{
if (i==0||s[i-1]==' '&&s[i]>='a'&&s[i]<='z')
s[i]=toupper(s[i]);
}
puts(s);
}
main()
{
char s[100];
printf("Enter a line: ");
gets(s);
capital(s);
}
I made an update based on Stefan Bollmann answer:
#include <string.h>
#include <stdio.h>
char* uc_words(char string[])
{
int i;
int x = strlen(string);
int counter = 0;
for (i = 0; i < x; i++)
{
// If found a white-space reset counter
if (isspace(string[i]))
counter = 0;
// Check if first character in word
if (isalpha(string[i]) && !isspace(string[i]) && counter == 0)
{
string[i]= toupper(string[i]);
counter = 1;
}
}
return string;
}
int main()
{
char string[] = "hello world";
printf("%s\n", uc_words(string));
return 0;
}

C simple string program does not compile

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
char Jones(char, char);
int main() {
char name[]="Andrew";
char surname[]="Jones";
char result[80];
result=Jones(name, surname);
puts(result);
return 0;
}
char Jones(char name, char surname)
{
char result[80];
int length;
length = strlen(surname);
for (int i=0; i<50; i++)
{
result[length+i] = name[i];
}
return result;
}
The program does not compile and i dont know why. It is supposed to read two strings and swap their places. It should display eg. "Jones Andrew".
Here's one problem:
char name[]="Andrew";
char surname[]="Jones";
char result[80];
wynik=Jones(name, surname);
This calls Jones() with character arrays (which will decay to character pointers), but the function is declared to accept single characters only.
You should change the function to take char *name, char *surname, since it really does seem to expect strings.
Further, you can't return a character array like you're doing in Jones(), you need to read up quite a bit on how to work with strings in C.
Also, wynik looks undeclared, that'll also make it fail to build.
There's a few errors:
char Jones(char, char);
This takes just a single char, not a char * which you need for a string.
result=Jones(name, surname);
Here result is an array. In C, you cannot assign to an array.
char Jones(char name, char surname)
{ char result[80];
...
return result;
}
Here you return result which is a local variable. But to return a string, you'd need to return a char*. But that char* would point to a local variable within the Jones function, which is no longer valid when the function ends. One solution is to pass in a buffer where you write the result that the caller owns.
Your algorithm for combining the surename and name is also wrong, you never do anything with the surename.
You'll need to do this:
char *Jones(char*, char* , char *);
int main() {
char name[]="Andrew";
char surname[]="Jones";
char result[80];
char *p;
p = Jones(name, surname, result);
puts(p);
return 0;
}
char *Jones(char *name, char *surname, char *result)
{
int length;
int i,k;
length = strlen(surname);
for (i=0; i<length ; i++)
{
result[i] = surname[i];
}
result[i++] = ' '; //add a space
length = strlen(name);
for (k=0; k<length ; k++, i++)
{
result[i] = name[k];
}
result[i] = 0; //add nul terminator to end the string
return result;
}
The conatenation could be simplified in many ways, e.g. to
strcpy(result, surename);
strcat(result, " ");
strcat(result, name);
or the Jones function could just do:
sprintf(result, "%s %s", surename, name);
In all cases, the function is rather fragile, as it's easy to overflow the result buffer if you pass in something else that does not fit within the result buffer.
1) The name and surname are char array and not single char so you have to change the input parameters types of your function Jones() the input parameters types should be char name[] (char array) or char *name (pointer to array of char)
2) You can not return an array defined locally and statically in the function. and if you want to return a string from the function, the string should be constant or it should be a buffer allocated dynamically (with malloc, calloc, realloc) into the function And for both cases the function type should be char *Jonas() and not char Jonas()
Or you can pass the result array via input parametr. and in this case you can fill it into the function.
void Jones(char *name, char *surname, char *result)
and in the main:
char result[80];
Jones(names, surname, result);
3) The following for loop is missing some thing
for (int i=0; i<50; i++)
{
result[length+i] = name[i];
}
The result elements from element 0 to element length are containing garbage because the result array is not initiated. so when you printf the result array you will get garbages printed. You have to initiate elements between 0 to length in the result array
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
char* Jones(char*, char*);
int main() {
char name[]="Andrew";
char surname[]="Jones";
puts(Jones(name,surname));
return 0;
}
char* Jones(char *name, char *surname)
{
strcat(surname," ");
strcat(surname,name);
return surname;
}

Function makes an array empty

I have the following code:
#include <stdio.h>
void insertion_sort(char[], int);
void swap(char*, char*);
int main() {
char s[] = "hello world";
puts(s);
insertion_sort(s, sizeof(s)/sizeof(char));
puts("done\n");
puts(s);
return 0;
}
void swap(char* a, char* b) {
char tmp = *a;
*a = *b;
*b = tmp;
}
void insertion_sort(char s[], int n)
{
int i,j;
/* counters */
for (i=1; i<n; i++) {
j=i;
while ((j>0) && (s[j] < s[j-1])) {
swap(&s[j],&s[j-1]);
j = j-1;
}
printf("%s\n", s);
}
}
The problem is, after the insertion_sort() function call, s becomes empty - puts(s) prints nothing.
Please advise.
Change:
insertion_sort(s, sizeof(s)/sizeof(char));
to:
insertion_sort(s, strlen(s));
otherwise you will be including the '\0' terminator of s[] in your sort.
Note that you will need an additional header for strlen so change:
#include <stdio.h>
to:
#include <stdio.h> // printf etc
#include <string.h> // strlen etc
The problem is that the length that you pass to insertion_sort includes terminating \0 character, which happens to have value 0, so in sort it is placed as the first element of your array. This is why your last puts() prints nothing - because the first character is now "the end of a string".
I suggest you to calculate the size of a string using strlen() which will return the length of a string excluding terminating character. Or if you want to do it your way, take terminating character into consideration and substract it from the total length.

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