LECTURE NOTE
22 FUNDAMENTALS OF STRINGS
A string is a series of characters treated as a single unit. A string may include letters, digits
and various special characters such as +, -, *, / and $. String literals or string constants in
C are written in double quotation marks as follows:
“1000 Main Street” (a street address)
“(080)329-7082” (a telephone number)
“Kalamazoo, New York” (a city)
In C language strings are stored in array of char type along with null terminating character
‘\0’ at the end.
When sizing the string array we need to add plus one to the actual size of the string to
make space for the null terminating character, ‘\0’.
Syntax:
char fname[4];
The above statement declares a string called fname that can take up to 3 characters. It can
be indexed just as a regular array as well. fname[]={‘t’,’w’,’o’};
character t w o \0
ASCII code 116 119 41 0
Generalized syntax is:-
char str[size];
when we declare the string in this way, we can store size-1 characters in the array because
the last character would be the null character. For example, char mesg[10]; can store
maximum of 9 characters.
If we want to print a string from a variable, such as four name string above we can do this.
e.g., printf(“First name:%s”,fname);
We can insert more than one variable. Conversion specification %s is used to insert a
string and then go to each %s in our string, we are printing.
A string is an array of characters. Hence it can be indexed like an array.
char ourstr[6] = “EED”;
– ourstr[0] is ‘E’
– ourstr[1] is ‘E’
– ourstr[2] is ‘D’
– ourstr[3] is ‘\0’
– ourstr[4] is ‘\0’ – ourstr[5] is ‘\0’
‘E’ ‘E’ ‘D’ \0 ‘\0’ ‘\0’
ourstr[0] ourstr[1] ourstr[2] ourstr[3] ourstr[4] ourstr[5]
Reading strings:
If we declare a string by writing
char str[100];
then str can be read from the user by using three ways;
1. Using scanf() function
2. Using gets() function
3. Using getchar(), getch(), or getche() function repeatedly
The string can be read using scanf() by writing
scanf(“%s”,str);
Although the syntax of scanf() function is well known and easy to use, the main pitfall with
this function is that it terminates as soon as it finds a blank space. For example, if the user
enters Hello World, then str will contain only Hello. This is because the moment a blank
space is encountered, the string is terminated by the scanf() function.
Example:
char str[10];
printf(“Enter a string\n”);
scanf(“%s”,str);
The next method of reading a string a string is by using gets() function. The string can be
read by writing
gets(str);
gets() is a function that overcomes the drawbacks of scanf(). The gets() function takes the
starting address of the string which will hold the input. The string inputted using gets() is
automatically terminated with a null character.
Example:
char str[10];
printf(“Enter a string\n”);
gets(str);
The string can also be read by calling the getchar() repeatedly to read a sequence of single
characters (unless a terminating character is encountered) and simultaneously storing it in
a character array as follows: int i=0; char str[10],ch; getchar(ch);
while(ch!=’\0’)
{
str[i]=ch; // store the read
character in str i++; getch(ch);
// get another character
str[i]=’\0’; // terminate str with null character
Writing string
The string can be displayed on screen using three ways:
1. Using printf() function
2. Using puts() function
3. Using putchar() function repeatedly
The string can be displayed using pintf() by writing printf(“%s”,str);
We can use width and precision specification along with %s. The width specifies the
minimum output field width and the precision specifies the maximum number of characters
to be displayed. Example:
printf(“%5.3s”,str);
this statement would print only the first three characters in a total field of five charaters;
also these three characters are right justified in the allocated width.
The next method of writing a string is by using the puts() function. The string can be
displayed by writing: puts(str);
It terminates the line with a newline character (‘\n’). It returns an EOF(-1) if an error occurs
and returns a positive number on success.
Finally the string can be written by calling the putchar( ) function repeatedly to print a
sequence of single characters.
LECTURE NOTE 23
COMMON FUNCTIONS IN STRING
Type Method Description
char strcpy(s1, s2) Copy string
char strcat(s1, s2) Append string
int strcmp(s1, s2) Compare 2 strings
int strlen(s) Return string length
char strchr(s, int c) Find a character in string
char strstr(s1, s2) Find string s2 in string s1
strcpy():
It is used to copy one string to another string. The content of the second string is copied
to the content of the first string.
Syntax:
strcpy (string 1, string 2);
Example:
char mystr[10];
mystr = “Hello”; // Error! Illegal !!! Because we are assigning the value to
mystr which
is not possible in case of an string. We can only use "=" at declarations of C-String.
strcpy(mystr, “Hello”);
It sets value of mystr equal to “Hello”.
strcmp():
It is used to compare the contents of the two strings. If any mismatch occurs then it results
the difference of ASCII values between the first occurrence of 2 different characters.
Syntax:
int strcmp(string 1, string 2);
Example:
char mystr_a[10] =
“Hello”; char
mystr_b[10] =
“Goodbye”;
– mystr_a == mystr_b; // NOT allowed!
The correct way is if
(strcmp(mystr_a, mystr_b ))
printf ("Strings are NOT the
same."); else
printf( "Strings are the same.");
Here it will check the ASCII value of H and G i.e, 72 and 71 and return the diference 1.
strcat():
It is used to concatenate i.e, combine the content of two strings.
Syntax:
strcat(string 1, string 2);
Example:
char fname[30]={“bob”};
char lname[]={“by”};
printf(“%s”,
strcat(fname,lname));
Output:
bobby.
strlen():
It is used to return the length of a string.
Syntax:
int strlen(string);
Example:
char fname[30]={“bob”};
int length=strlen(fname);
It will return 3
strchr():
It is used to find a character in the string and returns the index of occurrence of the character
for the first time in the string.
Syntax:
strchr(cstr);
Example:
char mystr[] = "This is a simple
string"; char pch =
strchr(mystr,‘s’);
The output of pch is mystr[3]
strstr():
It is used to return the existence of one string inside another string and it results the starting
index of the string.
Syntax:
strstr(cstr1, cstr2);
Example:
Char mystr[]="This is a simple
string"; char pch = strstr(mystr,
“simple”); here pch will point
to mystr[10]
• String input/output library functions
NOTE:Character arrays are known as strings.
