Two Dimensional Array of Characters in C - c

Question

Help me to get out of this problem. I'm using GCC on ubuntu12.04. While I write this program to get 5 strings from keyboard n then print these strings on screen. Program is compiled but during execution it takes strings from keyboard but print only last string. The program which I have written is below:
void main()
{
char names[10];
int i,j;
for(i=0;i<5;i++)
{
printf(" Enter a name which you want to register\n");
scanf("%s",names);
}
for(i=0;i<5;i++)
printf(" the names you enter are %s\n", names);
}

Answer 1

1) you can use 2D char array in this way
char names[5][100];
each line in the 2D array is an array of char with size = 100
for(i=0;i<5;i++)
{
printf(" Enter a name which you want to register\n");
scanf("%99s",names[i]);
}
2) You can use array of pointers in this way
char *names[5];
each element in the array is a pointer to a string (char array). you have to assign each pointer in the array to a memory space before you call scanf()
for(i=0;i<5;i++)
{
names[i]=malloc(100);
printf(" Enter a name which you want to register\n");
scanf("%99s",names[i]);
}
3) if you compile with gcc version >2.7 then your scanf() can allocate memory by using "%ms" instead of "%s"
char *names[5];
for(i=0;i<5;i++)
{
printf(" Enter a name which you want to register\n");
scanf("%ms",&names[i]);
}

Answer 2

There is a simple example about reading and keeping string in the char array.
#include <stdio.h>
const int MACRO = 6;
int main() {
printf("Hello Admin Please Enter the Items:\n");
char items[MACRO][20];
for (int i = 0; i < MACRO; ++i) {
scanf("%19s", items[i]);
}
for (int i = 0; i < MACRO; ++i) {
printf("%s ", items[i]);
}
return 0;
}

Answer 3

In your program the mistake is that you have not putted '&'address of operator int the first for loop . names in your case is an array if you store %s string in names and not &names[0] or &names[1] or so on then as array itself acts as a pointer therefore the array "names" is pointing to the address of its first elements i.e. names[0] . so if you are writing scanf("%s",names); that is similar to scanf("%s",&names[0]); so as you are storing the names in one element only and that too for 5 iterations for only the last string you have entered will be stored and previous strings will be gone . so onlye last string is printed in your program .

Answer 4

in your code, you only declare char data type to be one dimensional and thus it will always overwrite the previous input,that's why the result is the last input printed 5 times.
char names[10];
the above declaration means that you declare a char type variable only with 10 character size without an extra array,it means you only declare a single variable for 5 input.
to make a two dimensional char, you will need to declare it like this :
char names[5][10];
in the code above, it means that you declare a char type variable with 10 character size in an array of 5.

Answer 5

Here is the code I wrote using pointer.
#include <stdio.h>
void main()
{
char *string[100];
int ln;
printf("Enter numbar of lines: ");
scanf("%d",&ln);
printf("\n");
for(int x=0;x<ln;x++)
{
printf("Enter line no - %d ",(x+1));
scanf("%ms",&string[x]); // I am using gcc to compile file, that's why using %ms to allocate memory.
}
printf("\n\n");
for(int x=0;x<ln;x++)
{
printf("Line No %d - %s \n",(x+1),string[x]);
}
}
Another code using two dimensional Array
#include <stdio.h>
void main()
{
int ln;
printf("Enter numbar of lines: ");
scanf("%d",&ln);
printf("\n");
char string[ln][10];
for(int x=0;x<ln;x++){
printf("Enter line no - %d ",(x+1));
scanf("%s",&string[x][0]);
}
for(int x=0;x<ln;x++)
{
printf("Line No %d - %s \n",(x+1),string[x]);
}
}