String

Department of Information System

SoICT, HUST

1
Store in the memory
• Remind:
– Each cell in the memory is addressed.
– Each variable declaration takes one cell to
store value.

Example: char ch;

ch = ‘B’;

0x1FFE 0x1FFF 0x2000 0x2001 0x2002

‘B’ etc
ch
2
Representing a string
• A character string is a char array
• Each cell in the array contains a char
• The character string must have the terminating
character (’\0’), aka null character. The address of
the first character is the string’s address

Example: char name[5];

name
= 0x2000

0x2000 0x2004

3
String declaration
Declare 1:
char name[5] = “Ann”; Terminating character
(NULL character)

name A n n \0
= 0x2000

0x2000 0x2004

Equal declare:
char name[5] = {’A’,’n’,’n’,’\0’};

4
String declaration
Declare 2: An additional character
char name[] = “Ann”; for end of string ‘\0’

name A n n \0
= 0x2000
0x2000 0x2003
Attention:
char name[] = ‘Ann’; No character for end
of string (‘\0’)

name A n n
= 0x2000
0x2000 0x2002
5
String declaration

Declaration 3:
char *name = “Ann”;

0x3000 A n n \0
name

0x3000 0x3003
Can change
reference for the
pointer name

6
Input/output a string
#include <stdio.h> Declare a
constant
#define MAXLENGTH 15

int main()
{
char str1[MAXLENGTH];
char str2[MAXLENGTH]; No operant &
here

scanf("%s", str1); gets() allows input

gets(str2); a string with spaces
printf("%s\n%s\n", str1, str2);

return 0;
}
7
Character in string
0x3995 0x399C

name J o h n \0
= 0x3995

index 0 index 2

char name[8] = “John”;

int i = 2;

printf(“Char at index %d is %c.\n”, i, name[i]);

output: Char at index 2 is h.

8
Program to calculating the number of
character
• Calculate the characters that are not spaces in the input string

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
char str[80];
int dem, i;

printf("Nhap xau bat ki: ");

gets(str);

dem = 0; i = 0;
while ( str[i] != '\0' ) {
if ( str[i] != ' ' ) dem++;
i++;
}
printf(“So ki tu khac trang trong xau la %d", dem);

return 0;
}
9
 String operations
• #include <string.h>
• Use library functions declared in <string.h>
• Assignment : strcpy()
char s1[25];
char s2[25];
strcpy(s1, “Hello”);
strcpy(s2, s1);

10
 String assignment
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

#define MAXLENGTH 100

int main()
{
char string1[MAXLENGTH];
char string2[MAXLENGTH];

strcpy(string1, “Hello World!”);

strcpy(string2, string1);

return 0;
}

string1: “Hello World!”

string2: “Hello World!”
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Common mistakes
s1 = “Hello”;
s2 = s1;
s1 = s1 + “Anna”;
s2 = s2 + “World”;

char s[4];
strcpy(s, “Hello”);

12
 String operations
• Concatenation : strcat()
strcat(s1, “ Anna”);
strcat(s2, “ World”);
• Memory leak maybe occurs when
copying/concatenating strings.
• Common errors:
char name[5];
strcpy(name, “Ann”);
strcat(name, “ Smith”);

13
String concatenation

char string1[80];
char string2[80];

strcpy(string1, “Goodbye”);
strcpy(string2, “, Cruel ”);

strcat(string1, string2);
strcat(string1, string2);
strcat(string1, “World!”);

string1: “Goodbye, Cruel , Cruel World!”

string2: “, Cruel ”

14
 String operations
• Comparison : strcmp()
• strcmp returns 0 if str1 = str2
<0 if str1 < str2
>0 if str1 > str2
char str1[] = “Windows”;
char str2[] = “Unix”;
if (strcmp(str1, str2) < 0)
printf(“%s %s\n”, str1, str2);
else printf(“%s %s\n”, str2, str1);

15
Common errors

strcpy(string1, “Apple”); Compare

strcpy(string2, “Wax”); addresses of the
two strings
if (string1 < string2)
{
printf(“%s %s\n”, string1, string2);
}
else
{
printf(“%s %s\n”, string2, string1);
}

16
Strings as function parameters
• Declare as char* or char[]
void greeting (char* name)
void greeting (char name[])
• It points to the first character of the string
• Changes to the string inside the function affect the
actual string
• It is not necessary to pass the length of the string to
the function

17
Example

char *capitalize(char * str)

{
for (i=0; i<strlen(str); i++)
if ( str[i]>=’a’&& str[i]<=’z’)&&
(i==0||str[i-1]==’ ’) )
str[i] = ’A’ + (str[i]-’a’);
return str;
}

18
Example
• Write a function that returns the name from a full name. The full name is not
an empty string and does not have extra spaces

char * timten(const char[] hoten)

{
int i;
i = strlen(hoten)-1;
/* Find the last space in the string */
while (i >= 0 && hoten[i] != ' ') i--;
return hoten + i + 1;
}

hoten+i+1

hoten T r a n T i e n \0

Index of the space

(i=4)
19
Example (con’t)

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

char * timten(const char[] hoten);

int main()
{
char hoten[80];

printf("Nhap mot xau ho va ten: ");

gets(hoten);

printf("Ten sau khi tach duoc: %s", timten(hoten));

return 0;
}
20
Exercises
(i) Trim left blanks, right blanks, and redundant
blanks in a string.
(ii) Inverse a string.
(iii) Copy first name or last name in a full name string.

21
Thank you
for your
attentions!