Strings and One-Dimensional Character

Arrays
CS10003 PROGRAMMING AND DATA STRUCTURES

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 Recap: integer arrays
All the data items constituting the group share the same name
int x[10];
Individual elements are accessed by specifying the index

x[0] x[1] x[2] x[9]

x is a 10-element
one-dimensional array
Can initialize an array during declaration:
int x[5] = {76, 99, 0, -3, 8};

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Character Arrays and Strings
char C[8] = {'p', 'r', 'o', 'g', 'r', 'a', 'm', '\0’};

C[0] gets the value 'p', C[1] the value 'r', and so on. The last (7th) location receives the NULL
character ‘\0’.
Null-terminated (last character is ‘\0’) character arrays are also called null-terminated strings
or just strings.
Strings can be initialized in an alternative way. The last declaration is equivalent to:
char C[8] = "program";
C automatically puts the trailing null character at the end if you define a string like this.
You can have a bigger array (like c[10] or c[100]) to store the string “program”. The string
ends as soon as the first null character in the array is encountered.
The size of the array should be at least one more than the length of the string it stores.
For individual characters, C uses single quotes, whereas for strings, it uses double quotes.

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 String literals
String literal values are represented by sequences of characters between double quotes.

Examples
• “” represents the empty string
• “hello”

“a” versus ‘a’

• ‘a’ is a single character value (stored in 1 byte) as the ASCII value for the letter a
• “a” is an array with two characters, the first is ‘a’, the second is the character value ‘\0’

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 Reading strings: %s format
int main()
{
char name[25];
scanf("%s", name);
printf("Name = %s \n", name);
return 0;
}

%s reads a string into a character array given the array name or start address.
It ends the string with the special “null” character ‘\0’.
scanf with %s can read a string without any whitespace (blank, tab, linebreak).
Input assumed to end if whitespace is encountered.

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 Example: Finding the length of a string
#define SIZE 25
int main()
{
int i, length=0; Output
char name[SIZE];
Satyanarayana
scanf("%s", name);
printf("Name = %s\n", name); Name = Satyanarayana
for (i=0; name[i]!='\0'; i++) Length = 13
length++;
printf(“Length = %d\n", length);
return 0;
}

Note that character strings read

in the %s format end with ‘\0’

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 Example: Counting the number of a’s
#define SIZE 25
int main()
{
int i, count=0; Output
char name[SIZE];
Satyanarayana
scanf("%s", name);
printf("Name = %s \n", name); Name = Satyanarayana
for (i=0; name[i]!='\0'; i++) Total a's = 6
if (name[i] == 'a') count++;
printf("Total a's = %d\n", count);
return 0;
}

Note that character strings read

in %s format end with ‘\0’

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Example: Palindrome Checking
int main()
{
int i, flag, len = 0;
char name[25];
scanf ("%s", name); /* Read Name */
len = 0; while (name[len]) len++; /* Find Length of String */
flag = 0;
/* Loop below checks for palindrome by comparison*/
for (i = 0; i < len; i++) {
if (name[i] != name[len-1-i]) flag = 1;
}
if (flag == 0) printf ("%s is a Palindrome\n", name);
else printf ("%s is NOT a Palindrome\n", name);
return 0;
}

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Counting Vowels of a String
#include<stdio.h>
int main()
{
char A[100], B[5] ={'a', 'e', 'i', 'o', 'u’};
int i, j, len, C[5]= {0,0,0,0,0};
scanf ("%s", A);
thequickbrownfoxjumpsoverthelazydog
printf ("A = %s\n", A);
for (len = 0; A[len] != '\0'; len++); A = thequickbrownfoxjumpsoverthelazydog
printf ("Length = %d\n", len); Length = 35
for (i=0; i<len; i++){ Number of a = 1
for (j=0; j<5; j++) { Number of e = 3
if(A[i] == B[j]) C[j]++; Number of i = 1
}
Number of o = 4
}
Number of u = 2
for (j=0; j<5; j++)
printf ("Number of %c = %d \n", B[j], C[j]);
}

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Reading Strings with Blanks
In many applications, we need to read in an entire line of text (including blank spaces).
But scanf with %s cannot input a string having whitespace within it.
One way to enter a string having whitespace within it:

char line[101], ch;

int c = 0; If the input contains more than
: 100 characters, this program
: corrupts memory.
do
{ To avoid this, keep a counter of
ch = getchar(); how many characters you read.
Read characters until As soon as the count reaches
line[c] = ch;
CR (‘\n’) is 100, stop reading.
c++;
encountered
}
while (ch != ‘\n’); Exercise: Write this safe code.

c = c – 1; A built-in function that does

line[c] = ‘\0’; Make it a valid string (almost) the same thing is fgets().

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Pattern Matching
#include<stdio.h> Enter String and Pattern:
int main() abababababab
{ aba
char S[20], P[20]; S = abababababab, P = aba
int i, j, k, flag; Number of Matches = 5
printf ("Enter String and Pattern:\n");
scanf ("%s%s", S, P);
Enter String and Pattern:
printf ("S = %s, P = %s \n", S, P);
abababababab
k = 0;
ababab
for (i=0; S[i] != '\0'; i++) {
S = abababababab, P = ababab
flag = 1;
Number of Matches = 4
for (j=0; P[j]!='\0'; j++)
if (S[i+j]!= P[j]) {flag = 0; break;}
if (flag == 1) k++;
}
printf("Number of Matches = %d \n", k);
}

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 String library functions

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Library Functions

• Set of functions already written for you, and bundled in a “library”

• Example: printf, scanf, getchar
• C library provides a large number of functions for many things
• Already seen math library functions earlier
• Will look at string library functions

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String Library Functions

String library functions

• Perform common operations on null terminated strings.
• Must include a special header file:
#include <string.h>

Note:
We have discussed: When an integer / float array is sent to a function as an argument, it is
required to send an indicator of the size or number of valid elements in the array as another
argument.

When a string is sent to a function as an argument, no need to send any separate indicator of
the size, since the function can utilize the ‘\0’ to identify the end of the string.

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Common string library functions

strlen – returns the length of a string

strcmp – compares two strings (lexicographic)
strcat – concatenates two strings
strcpy – copy one string to another

Many others, but these are the ones you would know in this course.

These functions need the inputs to be null-terminated. They also put the null
character at the end of the result string (provided that the result is a string).

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strcpy()
Works very much like a string assignment operator.
strcpy (str1, str2);
• Assigns the contents of str2 to str1.
• Returns address of the destination string.
Examples:
strcpy(city, “Calcutta”);
strcpy(city, mycity);

Warning:
• Assignment operator does not work for strings.
city = “Calcutta”; → INVALID

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strlen()

Counts and returns the number of characters in a string (excluding the null character
at the end).
strlen (str);

Example:
len = strlen(str);
/* str should be null-terminated. Returns an integer */

• The null character (‘\0’) at the end is not counted.

• Counting ends at the first null character.

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strcmp()
Compares two character strings (lexicographic comparison).
strcmp(str1, str2);
• Returns 0 if the two strings are equal, < 0 if the first string is lexicographically smaller
than the second string, > 0 if the first string is lexicographically larger than the second
string.
• 20 > 9 as integers, “20” < “9” as strings.

Examples:
if (strcmp(city, “Delhi”) == 0) printf(“The city is Delhi\n”);
if (!strcmp(city, “Delhi”)) printf(“The city is Delhi\n”);
if (strcmp(city1, city2))
printf(“%s and %s are different cities\n”, city1, city2);

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Example
int main()
{
char A[20], B[20];
int n, m, val;
scanf(“%s%s”, A, B);
n = strlen(A);
m = strlen(B);
printf(“The lengths of the strings are %d and %d\n”, n, m);
val = strcmp(A, B);
if (val == 0)
printf(“The strings are the same\n”);
else if (val < 0)
printf(“%s is smaller than %s\n”, A, B);
else
printf(“%s is smaller than %s\n”, A, B);
}

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strcat()
Joins or concatenates two strings together
strcat(str1, str2);

• str2 is appended to the end of str1.

• The null character at the end of str1 is removed, and str2 is joined
at that point.
• str1 should have enough space -- Programmer’s responsibility
Example:
strcpy(name1, “Amit ”); A m i t \0

strcpy(name2, “Roy”);
strcat(name1, name2); R o y \0

A m i t R o y \0

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