User entered string run a particular function in c - c

Question

Guys so I'm working on the web service assignment and I have the server dishing out random stuff and reading the uri but now i want to have the server run a different function depending on what it reads in the uri. I understand that we can do this with function pointers but i'm not exactly sure how to read char* and assign it to a function pointer and have it invoke that function.
Example of what I'm trying to do: http://pastebin.com/FadCVH0h
I could use a switch statement i believe but wondering if there's a better way.

Answer 1

For such a thing, you will need a table that maps char * strings to function pointers. The program segfaults when you assign a function pointer to string because technically, a function pointer is not a string.
Note: the following program is for demonstration purpose only. No bounds checking is involved, and it contains hard-coded values and magic numbers
Now:
void print1()
{
printf("here");
}
void print2()
{
printf("Hello world");
}
struct Table {
char ptr[100];
void (*funcptr)(void)
}table[100] = {
{"here", print1},
{"hw", helloWorld}
};
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
int i = 0;
for(i = 0; i < 2; i++){
if(!strcmp(argv[1],table[i].ptr) { table[i].funcptr(); return 0;}
}
return 0;
}

Answer 2

I'm gonna give you a quite simple example, that I think, is useful to understand how good can be functions pointers in C. (If for example you would like to make a shell)
For example if you had a struct like this:
typedef struct s_function_pointer
{
char* cmp_string;
int (*function)(char* line);
} t_function_pointer;
Then, you could set up a t_function_pointer array which you'll browse:
int ls_function(char* line)
{
// do whatever you want with your ls function to parse line
return 0;
}
int echo_function(char* line)
{
// do whatever you want with your echo function to parse line
return 0;
}
void treat_input(t_function_pointer* functions, char* line)
{
int counter;
int builtin_size;
builtin_size = 0;
counter = 0;
while (functions[counter].cmp_string != NULL)
{
builtin_size = strlen(functions[counter].cmp_string);
if (strncmp(functions[counter].cmp_string, line, builtin_size) == 0)
{
if (functions[counter].function(line + builtin_size) < 0)
printf("An error has occured\n");
}
counter = counter + 1;
}
}
int main(void)
{
t_function_pointer functions[] = {{"ls", &ls_function},
{"echo", &echo_function},
{NULL, NULL}};
// Of course i'm not gonna do the input treatment part, but just guess it was here, and you'd call treat_input with each line you receive.
treat_input(functions, "ls -laR");
treat_input(functions, "echo helloworld");
return 0;
}
Hope this helps !