Programming

Strings
COMP102 Prog. Fundamentals: Strings / Slide 2

Character Strings
 A sequence of characters is often referred to as a
character “string”.
 A string is stored in an array of type char ending with
the null character '\0 '.
COMP102 Prog. Fundamentals: Strings / Slide 3

Character Strings
 A string containing a single character takes up 2
bytes of storage.
COMP102 Prog. Fundamentals: Strings / Slide 4

Character Strings
COMP102 Prog. Fundamentals: Strings / Slide 5

Character Strings
COMP102 Prog. Fundamentals: Strings / Slide 6

Character vs. String

 A string constant is a sequence of characters
enclosed in double quotes.
 For example, the character string:
char s1[2]="a"; //Takes two bytes of storage.
s1:
a \0

 On the other hand, the character, in single quotes:

char s2= `a`; //Takes only one byte of storage.
s2:
a
COMP102 Prog. Fundamentals: Strings / Slide 7

Character vs. String

COMP102 Prog. Fundamentals: Strings / Slide 8

Example 1

char message1[12] = "Hello world";

cout << message1 << endl;

message1: H e l l o w o r l d \0

char message2[12];
cin >> message2; // type "Hello" as input

message2: H e l l o \0 ? ? ? ? ? ?
COMP102 Prog. Fundamentals: Strings / Slide 9

Example 2: String I/O

String can be input using the extraction operator >>, but one or
more white spaces indicates the end of an input string.
char A_string[80], E_string[80];
cout << "Enter some words in a string:\n";
cin >> A_string >> E_string;
cout << A_string << E_string
<< “\nEND OF OUTPUT\n";

Output:
Enter some words in a string:
This is a test.
Thisis
END OF OUTPUT
COMP102 Prog. Fundamentals: Strings / Slide 10

getline

 The function getline can be used to read an entire line

of input into a string variable.

 The getline function has three parameters:

 The first specifies the area into which the string is to
be read.
 The second specifies the maximum number of
characters, including the string delimiter.
 The third specifies an optional terminating character. If
not included, getline stops at ‘\n’.
COMP102 Prog. Fundamentals: Strings / Slide 11

Example 3: getline

char A_string[80];
cout << "Enter some words in a string:\n";
//80 is the size of A_string
cin.getline(A_string, 80);
cout << A_string << “\nEND OF OUTPUT\n";
Output:
Enter some words in a string:
This is a test.
This is a test.
END OF OUTPUT
COMP102 Prog. Fundamentals: Strings / Slide 12

Example 4: getline Example

char A_string[5], E_string[80];
cout << "Enter some words in a string:\n";
cin >> A_string;
cin.getline (E_string, 9) ;
cout << A_string << "#" << E_string
<< “\nEND OF OUTPUT\n";

Output:
Enter some words in a string:
This is a test.
This# is a te
END OF OUTPUT
COMP102 Prog. Fundamentals: Strings / Slide 13

Example 5: getline Example

char lastName[30], firstName[30];
cout << "Enter a name <last,first>:\n";
cin.getline (lastName, sizeof(lastName), ',');
cin.getline (firstName, sizeof(firstName));
cout << "Here is the name you typed:\n\t|"
<< firstName << " " << lastName << "|\n";

Output:
Enter a name in the form <last,first>:
Chan,Anson
Here is the name you typed:
|Anson Chan|
COMP102 Prog. Fundamentals: Strings / Slide 14
COMP102 Prog. Fundamentals: Strings / Slide 15

Ex. 6: String Copy Function in <cstring>

void strcpy(char dest[], const char src[]);
//copies string src into string dest
example:
char name1[16], name2[16];
strcpy(name1,"Chan Tai Man");
name1:
C h a n T a i M a n \0 ? ? ?

strcpy(name2,"999999999999999");
name2:
9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 \0
strcpy(name2,name1);
name2:
C h a n T a i M a n \0 9 9 \0
COMP102 Prog. Fundamentals: Strings / Slide 16

Example 7: strcpy in <cstring>

#include <iostream>
#include <cstring>
using namespace std;
int main (){
char string_1[6] = "Short"; // character strings
char string_2[17] = "Have a Nice Day";
char string_3[6] = "Other";
strcpy(string_1, string_2);
return 0;
}
COMP102 Prog. Fundamentals: Strings / Slide 17

Ex. 8: String Length Check Function in <cstring>

// string prototype, already included in string.h
//returns length of string(not counting'\0‘)
//you don't need to include it in your program
int strlen(const char[]);

int string_length = strlen("abcde");

//string_length is set to 5.
COMP102 Prog. Fundamentals: Strings / Slide 18

Ex. 9: String Length Check Function Example

#include <iostream>
#include <cstring>
using namespace std;
int main(){
char string_1[5] = "ABCD", string_2[10]="123456789";
cout << "String 1 = " << string_1 << endl;
cout << "String 2 = " << string_2 << endl;
strncpy(string_1,string_2,strlen(string_1));
cout << "After copying, string 1 = " << string_1<<endl;
return 0;
}
//output:
String 1 = ABCD
String 2 = 123456789
After copying, string 1 = 1234
COMP102 Prog. Fundamentals: Strings / Slide 19

Ex. 10: String Length Check Function in <cstring>

//Copy the value of a string to a string variable
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;
void string_copy(char target[], const char source[],
int target_size);
//Before: target_size is the declared size of target.
//not including '\0'.
//After: The value of target has been set to the string
//value in source, provided the declared size of
//target is large enough. If target is not large
//enough to hold the entire string, a string
//equal to the length of target will be stored.
COMP102 Prog. Fundamentals: Strings / Slide 20

Ex. 10: String Copy and String Length Check

int main( ) //Driver function
{
char short_string[11];
char long_string[] = "This is rather long.";
cout << long_string << "STRING ENDS HERE.\n";
string_copy(short_string, "Hello", 10);
cout << short_string << "STRING ENDS HERE.\n";
string_copy(short_string, long_string, 10);
cout << short_string << "STRING ENDS HERE.\n";
return 0;
}
COMP102 Prog. Fundamentals: Strings / Slide 21

Ex. 10: String Copy and String Length Check

//Uses string.h:
void string_copy(char target[], const char source[],
int target_size)
{ int index;
int new_length = strlen(source);
if (new_length > (target_size))
new_length = target_size ;

for (index = 0; index < new_length; index++)

target[index] = source[index];
target[index] = '\0';
}
COMP102 Prog. Fundamentals: Strings / Slide 22

Ex. 10: String Copy and String Length Check

Output:
This is rather long.STRING ENDS HERE.
HelloSTRING ENDS HERE.
This is raSTRING ENDS HERE.
COMP102 Prog. Fundamentals: Strings / Slide 23

String Comparison
int strcmp(char s1[], char s2[]);
/*compares strings s1 and s2, returns
< 0 if s1 < s2
= 0 if s1 == s2 (i.e. strcmp returns false)
> 0 if s1 > s2
*/
int strncmp(char s1[], char s2[], int limit);
/* Same as strcmp except that at most limit characters are
compared. */
COMP102 Prog. Fundamentals: Strings / Slide 24

String Comparison
int comp102_strncmp(char s1[], char s2[],
int limit)
{
for (int i=0; i < limit; i++){
if (s1[i] < s2[i])
return -1;
if (s1[i] > s2[i])
return 1;
}
return 0;

}
COMP102 Prog. Fundamentals: Strings / Slide 25
COMP102 Prog. Fundamentals: Strings / Slide 26

Ex. 11: String Comparison Examples

str1 str2 return value reason

“AAAA” “ABCD” <0 ‘A’ <‘B’
“B123” “A089” >0 ‘B’ > ‘A’
“127” “409” <0 ‘1’ < ‘4’
“abc888” “abc888” =0 equal string
“abc” “abcde” <0 str1 is a sub string of
str2
“3” “12345” >0 ‘3’ > ‘1’
COMP102 Prog. Fundamentals: Strings / Slide 27

Some Common Errors

 It is illegal to assign a value to a string variable

(except at declaration).
char A_string[10];
A_string = "Hello";
// illegal assignment
Should use instead
strcpy (A_string, "Hello");
COMP102 Prog. Fundamentals: Strings / Slide 28

Ex. 12: Some Common Errors

The operator == doesn't test two strings for equality.

if (string1 == string2) //wrong
cout << "Yes!";
// illegal comparison
Should use instead
if (!strcmp(string1,string2))
cout << "Yes they are same!";
//note that strcmp returns 0 (false) if
//the two strings are the same.