C Programming Strings
In C programming, a string is a sequence of characters terminated with a
null character \0 . For example:
char c[] = "c string";
When the compiler encounters a sequence of characters enclosed in the
double quotation marks, it appends a null character \0 at the end by
default.
How to declare a string?
Here's how you can declare strings:
char s[5];
String Declaration in C
Here, we have declared a string of 5 characters.
How to initialize strings?
You can initialize strings in a number of ways.
char c[] = "abcd";
char c[50] = "abcd";
char c[] = {'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', '\0'};
char c[5] = {'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', '\0'};
Let's take another example:
char c[5] = "abcde";
Here, we are trying to assign 6 characters (the last character is '\0' ) to
a char array having 5 characters. This is bad and you should never do this.
Read String from the user
You can use the scanf() function to read a string.
The scanf() function reads the sequence of characters until it
encounters whitespace (space, newline, tab, etc.).
Example 1: scanf() to read a string
#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.
Even though Dennis Ritchie was entered in the above program,
only "Dennis" was stored in the name string. It's because there was a space
after Dennis .
How to read a line of text?
You can use the fgets() function to read a line of string. And, you can
use puts() to display the string.
Example 2: fgets() and puts()
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
char name[30];
printf("Enter name: ");
fgets(name, sizeof(name), stdin); // read string
printf("Name: ");
puts(name); // display string
return 0;
}
Output
Enter name: Tom Hanks
Name: Tom Hanks
Here, we have used fgets() function to read a string from the user.
fgets(name, sizeof(name), stdlin); // read string
The sizeof(name) results to 30. Hence, we can take a maximum of 30
characters as input which is the size of the name string.
To print the string, we have used puts(name); .
Note: The gets() function can also be to take input from the user. However,
it is removed from the C standard.
It's because gets() allows you to input any length of characters. Hence,
there might be a buffer overflow.
Commonly Used String Functions
• strlen() - calculates the length of a string
• strcpy() - copies a string to another
• strcmp() - compares two strings
• strcat() - concatenates two strings
Find the Frequency of a Character
#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
char str[1000], ch;
int count = 0;
printf("Enter a string: ");
fgets(str, sizeof(str), stdin);
printf("Enter a character to find its frequency: ");
scanf("%c", &ch);
for (int i = 0; str[i] != '\0'; ++i) {
if (ch == str[i])
++count;
}
printf("Frequency of %c = %d", ch, count);
return 0;
}
Output
Enter a string: This website is awesome.
Enter a character to find its frequency: e
Frequency of e = 4
Program to count vowels, consonants etc.
#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
char line[150];
int vowels, consonant, digit, space;
vowels = consonant = digit = space = 0;
printf("Enter a line of string: ");
fgets(line, sizeof(line), stdin);
for (int i = 0; line[i] != '\0'; ++i) {
if (line[i] == 'a' || line[i] == 'e' || line[i] == 'i' ||
line[i] == 'o' || line[i] == 'u' || line[i] == 'A' ||
line[i] == 'E' || line[i] == 'I' || line[i] == 'O' ||
line[i] == 'U') {
++vowels;
} else if ((line[i] >= 'a' && line[i] <= 'z') || (line[i] >= 'A' &&
line[i] <= 'Z')) {
++consonant;
} else if (line[i] >= '0' && line[i] <= '9') {
++digit;
} else if (line[i] == ' ') {
++space;
}
}
printf("Vowels: %d", vowels);
printf("\nConsonants: %d", consonant);
printf("\nDigits: %d", digit);
printf("\nWhite spaces: %d", space);
return 0;
}
Output
Enter a line of string: adfslkj34 34lkj343 34lk
Vowels: 1
Consonants: 11
Digits: 9
White spaces: 2
