Strings

We saw before that there is no string type in C. This is true – but you can simulate a string by using an array of characters that is terminated with a special end-of-string character, ‘\0’.

String Variables

A string literal can be declared as follows:

char str[] = "Hello";

After this line, str references the following characters in memory:

0	1	2	3	4	5
H	e	l	l	o	\0

We could have created the same string like this:

char str[6] = {'H', 'e', 'l', 'l', 'o', '\0'};

Arrays (and strings) are constant memory addresses. We can change values in strings and arrays, but we can’t change the memory address. So, we can do things like this:

str[0] = 'h'; //OK

But we can’t change the memory address (the entire string):

str = "hi"; //Compiler error!

Later in this section, you will see a function called strcpy that copies the characters from one string to another.

String Input and Output

Strings can be inputted and outputted just like any other variable. To print a string, use printf with the %s control string character. To get a string as input, you can use scanf (again with the %s control string character). When reading in a string, scanf will read characters up to but not including the first whitespace it encounters (’\n’, ’ ‘, ‘\t’, etc.).

Here’s an example:

char name[10];
printf("Enter your name: "); //Suppose you enter "Fred"
scanf("%s", name);
printf("Hello, %s!\n", name); //Will print "Hello, Fred!"

Notice that when you use scanf to read in a string, you do not need to put an & in front of the string variable name. This is because a string is an array of characters, and arrays are already memory addresses. (We’ll learn more about this in the section on Pointers.)

The trouble with using scanf to input strings is that the function doesn’t check the size of the array when it is reading input. So, if you typed the name “George Washington” in the above example (which needs 18 characters of space), scanf wouldn’t stop writing once it reached the end of the array. Instead, it would try to write past the end of the array. This would cause some of your variables to be overwritten, or a segmentation fault. In the worst case, it could be exploited by a hacker with a buffer overflow attack, where the hacker knowingly inserted program instructions beyond the bounds of the input buffer.

A better choice for reading in strings is the fgets function. Here’s the prototype:

char[] fgets(char s[], int size, FILE *stream);

You pass fgets the string buffer (s), the size of the buffer (size), and the stream you’re reading from (use stdin to read as regular user input). It returns the string it read, or NULL if it was unable to read anything.

It will stop reading user input when either:

It has read size-1 characters (it needs the last spot for a ‘\0’)
It has reached the end of the input
It has reached a newline

Here is same example using fgets:

char name[10];
printf("Enter your name: "); //Suppose you enter "Fred"
fgets(name, 10, stdin);
printf("Hello, %s", name); //Will print "Hello, Fred"

NOTE: if fgets reaches a newline character before reading size-1 characters, it WILL store the newline as its last character (just before the \0). If the user enters “Fred” in the example above, the name array will hold: {'F', 'r', 'e', 'd', '\n', '\0', (garbage), (garbage), (garbage), (garbage)}.

If you want to remove that \n character, you will need to overwrite the \n to hold the end-of-string character instead (\0). We will see a convenient trick for doing this in the strcspn section below.

Conversions

It is sometimes necessary to convert between strings, ints, and doubles.

From string to int/double

There are two conversion functions from a string to an int or double:

atoi: converts from a string to an int
atof: converts from a string to a double

To use any of these functions, you need to add:

#include <stdlib.h>

To the top of the file.

Here is an example of using the conversion functions:

char buff[10];
int num;
double d;

printf("Enter an integer: ");
fgets(buff, 10, stdin); //Suppose you enter "47"
num = atoi(buff); //num = 47

printf("Enter a real number: ");
fgets(buff, 10, stdin); //Suppose you enter "4.75"

d = atof(buff); //d = 4.75

From int/double to string

The easiest way to convert from an int or double to a string is to use the sprintf function, which is part of stdio.h. sprintf works exactly like printf, but lets you “print” to a string instead of to standard out. You can either print a single int or double (thus converting it to a string), or you can print longer a longer string that mixes variable values with other text. Here is an example of using sprintf:

char buff1[10];
char buff2[40];
int num = 7;
double dec = 14.23;

sprintf(buff1, "%d", num);						//buff1 is now "7"
sprintf(buff2, "Decimal value: %lf.", dec);		//buff2 is now "Decimal value: 14.23."

String Functions

Below is a list of common string functions. To use any of these, you need to add:

#include <string.h>

To to the top of the file.

strcat

char[] strcat(char str1[], char str2[]);

This function copies the characters in str2 onto the end of str1. It returns the newly concatenated string (although str1 also references the concatenated string).

For example:

char str1[20];
char str2[20];
printf("Enter two words: "); //Suppose you entered "hi hello"
scanf("%s %s", str1, str2);
strcat(str1, str2); 		//str1 = "hihello", str2 = "hello"

strcmp

int strcmp(char str1[], char str2[]);

This function compares str1 and str2 to see which string comes alphabetically before the other. It returns:

A number less than 0, if str1 comes alphabetically before str2
0, if str1 equals str2
A number greater than 0, if str1 comes alphabetically after str2

For example:

char str1[20];
char str2[20];
printf("Enter two words: "); //Suppose you entered "hi hello"
scanf("%s %s", str1, str2);

if (strcmp(str1, str2) < 0) {
	printf("%s comes first\n", str1);
}
else if (strcmp(str1, str2) > 0) {
	printf("%s comes first\n", str2);
}
else {
	printf("The strings are equal\n");
}

The code above would print “hello comes first”.

strcpy

char[] strcpy(char str1[], char str2[]);

This function copies the characters in str2 into str1, overwriting anything that was already in str1. It returns the newly copied string (although str1 also references the copied string).

For example:

char src[20];
char dest[20];

printf("Enter a word: ");
scanf("%s", src); 			//Suppose you entered "hello"

strcpy(dest, src); 			//Now dest also holds "hello"

src[0] = 'B'; 				//Now src is "Bello", and dest is "hello"

strcspn

int strcspn(char str1[], char str2[]);

This function returns the number of characters that appear in str1 before reaching ANY character from str2. (If the first character in str1 also appears in str2, then strcspn returns 0.)

For example:

char str[20];
int index;

printf("Enter a word: ");//Suppose you entered "hello"
scanf("%s", str);

index = strcspn(str, "la"); //index is 2
//2 characters appear in str before finding any character from "la"

strcspn is especially handy for removing the trailing \n that gets added to strings when using fgets. As we saw earlier in this section, if we do:

char name[10];
printf("Enter your name: ");
fgets(name, 10, stdin);

And enter “Fred”, then the name array will hold {'F', 'r', 'e', 'd', '\n', '\0', (garbage), (garbage), (garbage), (garbage)}. We can use strcspn to find the index of \n and then replace it with a \0:

name[strcspn(name, "\n")] = '\0';

When strcspn gives us the number of characters read before reaching a \n, that IS the index of \n. In the same line, we can replace that position to be the end-of-string marker, which effectively deletes the newline from the end of the string.

strlen

int strlen(char str[]);

This function returns the number of characters in str.

For example:

char str[20];
printf("Enter a word: ");		//Suppose you entered "hello"
scanf("%s", str);

printf("%d\n", strlen(str)); 	//prints 5

strtok

char[] strtok(char str[], char delim[]);

This function returns the first token found in str before the occurrence of any character in delim. (After the first call to strtok, pass NULL as str. This will tell it to continue looking for tokens in the original string.)

For example:

char buff[200];
char *token; //We'll learn about this notation in "Pointers"

printf("Enter names, separated by commas: ");
//Suppose you entered "Fred,James,Jane,Lynn"
scanf("%s", buff);

token = strtok(buff, ",");
while (token != NULL) 
{
	printf("%s\n", token);
	token = strtok(NULL, ",");
}

The code above will print:

Fred
James
Jane
Lynn

strncpy

char[] strncpy(char str1[], char str2[], int n);

This function copies the first n characters from str2 to str1, overwriting anything that was already in str1. It returns the newly copied string (although str1 also references the copied string).

strncmp

int strncmp(char str1[], char str2[], int n);

This function compares the first n characters in str1 and str2 to see which length-n prefix comes first alphabetically. It returns:

A number less than 0, if the first n characters in str1 come alphabetically before the first n characters in str2
0, if the first n characters in str1 equal the first n characters in str2
A number greater than 0, if the first n characters in str1 come alphabetically after the first n characters in str2

strrchr

char[] strrchr(char str[], char c);

This function finds the LAST occurrence of c in str. It returns the suffix of str that begins with the last occurrence of c.

strspn

int strspn(char str1[], char str2[]);

This function returns the number of characters read in str1 before reaching a character that is NOT in str2.

strstr

char[] strstr(char str1[], char str2[]);

This function determines whether str2 is a substring of str1. If str2 is not a substring of str1, it returns NULL. If str2 is a substring of str1, it returns the suffix of str1 beginning with the str2 substring.

Be Careful!

It’s very easy to make a mistake when using strings. Strings are arrays, so you will get in trouble if you try to access memory beyond the end of the array.

For example:

char buff[5];
printf("Enter a word: ");
//Suppose you enter "Hello"
scanf("%s", buff);

scanf will copy the characters ‘H’, ’e’, ’l’, ’l’, ‘o’ into the array. However, it will then try to add the end-of-string character, ‘\0’, into the 6th spot in the array. This is past the end of the array, so your program will either crash with a segmentation fault, or you will overwrite the value of some other variable. A lot of the string functions involve writing to strings, and none of them will handle an out-of-bounds error gracefully.

When you use the following functions, MAKE SURE you have enough memory allocated:

scanf
strcpy
strcat
strncpy