C Programming String
In C programming, array of character are called strings. A string is terminated by null character /0 .
For example:
"c string tutorial"
Here, "c string tutorial" is a string. When, compiler encounters strings, it appends null character at
the end of string.
Declaration of strings
Strings are declared in C in similar manner as arrays. Only difference is that, strings are
of char type.
char s[5];
Strings can also be declared using pointer.
char *p
Initialization of strings
In C, string can be initialized in different number of ways.
char c[]="abcd";
OR,
char c[5]="abcd";
OR,
char c[]={'a','b','c','d','\0'};
OR;
char c[5]={'a','b','c','d','\0'};
String can also be initialized using pointers
char *c="abcd";
Reading Strings from user.
Reading words from user.
char c[20];
scanf("%s",c);
String variable c can only take a word. It is beacause when white space is encountered,
the scanf() function terminates.
Write a C program to illustrate how to read string from terminal.
#include <stdio.h>
int main(){
char name[20];
printf("Enter name: ");
scanf("%s",name);
printf("Your name is %s.",name);
return 0;
}
Output
Enter name: Dennis Ritchie
Your name is Dennis.
Here, program will ignore Ritchie because, scanf() function takes only string before the white
space.
Reading a line of text
C program to read line of text manually.
#include <stdio.h>
int main(){
char name[30],ch;
int i=0;
printf("Enter name: ");
while(ch!='\n') // terminates if user hit enter
{
ch=getchar();
name[i]=ch;
i++;
}
name[i]='\0'; // inserting null character at end
printf("Name: %s",name);
return 0;
}
This process to take string is tedious. There are predefined functions gets() and puts in C
language to read and display string respectively.
int main(){
char name[30];
printf("Enter name: ");
gets(name); //Function to read string from user.
printf("Name: ");
puts(name); //Function to display string.
return 0;
}
Both, the above program has same output below:
Output
Enter name: Tom Hanks
Name: Tom Hanks
Passing Strings to Functions
String can be passed to function in similar manner as arrays as, string is also an array. Learn more
about passing array to a function.
#include <stdio.h>
void Display(char ch[]);
int main(){
char c[50];
printf("Enter string: ");
gets(c);
Display(c); // Passing string c to function.
return 0;
}
void Display(char ch[]){
printf("String Output: ");
puts(ch);
}
Here, string c is passed from main() function to user-defined function Display() . In function
declaration, ch[] is the formal argument.
String handling functions
You can perform different type of string operations manually like: finding length of string,
concatenating(joining) two strings etc. But, for programmers ease, many library function are defined
under header file <string.h> to handle these commonly used talk in C programming. You will
learn more about string hadling function in next chapter.
String Manipulations In C Programming
Using Library Functions
Strings are often needed to be manipulated by programmer according to the need of a
problem. All string manipulation can be done manually by the programmer but, this makes
programming complex and large. To solve this, the C supports a large number of string
handling functions.
There are numerous functions defined in "string.h" header file. Few commonly used string
handling functions are discussed below:
Function Work of Function
strlen() Calculates the length of string
strcpy() Copies a string to another string
strcat() Concatenates(joins) two strings
strcmp() Compares two string
strlwr() Converts string to lowercase
strupr() Converts string to uppercase
Strings handling functions are defined under "string.h" header file, i.e, you have to include
the code below to run string handling functions.
#include <string.h>
gets() and puts()
Functions gets() and puts() are two string functions to take string input from user and
display string respectively as mentioned in previous chapter.
#include<stdio.h>
int main(){
char name[30];
printf("Enter name: ");
gets(name); //Function to read string from user.
printf("Name: ");
puts(name); //Function to display string.
return 0;
}
Though, gets() and puts() function handle string, both these functions are defined
in "stdio.h" header file.
