CHUỖI KÝ TỰ - STRINGS

Võ Quang Hoàng Khang

 Declare/ Initialize a String
• Static strings: stored in data segment or stack
segment
• char s1[21]; /* for a string of 20 characters*/
Initialize a string: NULL byte is automatically
inserted.
char name[31] = “I am a student”;
char name2[31] = {‘H’, ‘e ‘, ‘l’, ‘l’, ‘o’, ‘\0’ };
• Dynamic strings: Stored in the heap
char* S;
S = (char*) malloc( lengthOfString+1);
S = (char*) calloc( lengthOfString+1, sizeof(char));

Strings 2
 Data Stored in a strings
• Each character in a string is stored as it’s ASCII code.

S1[i]: The character at

the position i in the
string S1

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Output Strings – Test yourself

Observe the
prompt symbol
on the result
screen .

Strings 4
 Input Strings
• Library: stdio.h
• Function scanf() with type conversion %s
• Function gets(string)
• Each function has it’s own advantages and
weaknesses.

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 Input Strings: scanf(…)
The %s conversion specifier
• reads all characters until the first whitespace
character,
• stores the characters read in memory locations
starting with the address passed to scanf,
• Automatically stores the null byte in the memory
byte following the last character accepted and
• leaves the delimiting whitespace plus any
subsequent characters in the input buffer  ignores
any leading whitespace characters (default).
• Option specifiers are used to change default
characteristics of the function scanf on strings.
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 Input Strings: scanf(…)

char name[31]; Default

scanf("%s", name );
Enter: My name is Arnold

char name[31];
scanf(“%10s", name );
Enter: Schwartzenegger

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 Input Strings: scanf(…)

How to accept blanks in a input string?

%[^\n] conversion specifier

• reads all characters until the newline ('\n'),

• stores the characters read in memory locations
starting with the address passed to scanf,
• stores the null byte in the byte following that where
scanf stored the last character and
• leaves the delimiting character (here, '\n') in the input
buffer.

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 Input Strings: scanf(…)

How to accept blanks in a input string?

%[^\n] conversion specifier.

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 Input Strings: scanf(…)
Some character specifiers used in the function
scanf(): Set of character are or not accepted.
Specifier Description

%[abcd] Searches the input field for any of the characters a, b, c, and d
%[^abcd] Searches the input field for any characters except a, b, c, and d
%[0-9] To catch all decimal digits

%[A-Z] Catches all uppercase letters

%[0-9A-Za-z] Catches all decimal digits and all letters
%[A-FT-Z] Catches all uppercase letters from A to F and from T to Z

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 Input Strings: gets(…)
gets is a standard library function (stdio.h) that
– accepts an empty string
– uses the '\n' as the delimiter
– throws away the delimiter after accepting the string
– Automatically appends the null byte to the end of the
set stored
The prototype for gets is
char* gets(char [ ]);
(gets is dangerous. It can fill beyond the
memory that allocated for the string)

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Input Strings: gets(…)

2293612 n1: 10 Overflow

2293608 n2: 33

s
2293584
2293580 12

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 Others String Functions: string.h

Purpose Function
Get the length of a string int strlen (char s[])
Copy source string to destination string char* strcpy(char dest[], char src[])
Compare two strings int strcmp( char s1[], char s2[])  -1, 0, 1
Concatenate string src to the end of dest char* strcat(char dest[], char src[])
Convert a string to uppercase char* strupr(char s[])
Convert a string to lowercase char* strlwr(char s[])
Find the address of a substring char* strstr (char src[], char subStr[])
 NULL if subStr does not exist in the src.

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Others String Functions: string.h

HOA ANH DAOhoa A

2293584 2293596

strstr()  NULL if the substring doesn’t exist.

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 Some User-Defined String Functions

Purpose Prototype
Trim blanks at the beginning of a char* lTrim(char s[])
string: “ Hello”  “Hello”

Trim blanks at the end of a char* rTrim(char s[])

string: “Hello ”  “Hello”

Trim extra blanks in a string: char* trim (char s[])

“ I am a student “
 “I am a student”
Convert a string to a name: char* nameStr( char s[])
“ hoang thi hoa “
 “Hoang Thi Hoa”

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Some user-defined String Functions
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
H o a NULL
i=0 1 2 3

0 1 2 3 4 5 6
H o a NULL o a NULL

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Some user-defined String Functions
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
H o a NULL
2 3 4 i=5

0 1 2 3 4 5 6
H o a NULL NULL

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 Some user-defined String Functions
“ Hoa anh dao “ “Hoa anh dao“
“Hoa anh dao“
lTrim
“Hoa anh dao“
“Hoa anh dao “ “Hoa anh dao“
rTrim “Hoa anh dao“
“Hoa anh dao“ “Hoa anh dao“

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 Some user-defined String Functions
“ hOA anH dAo nO “
trim()
“hOA anH dAo nO“ h o a a n h d a o n o
strlwr() 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 1 1 1
“hoa anh dao no“ 0 1 2 3

“Hoa Anh Dao No“

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Some user-defined String Functions

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 Summary
String Input
– scanf
– gets
– Do yourself using getchar()
String Functions and Arrays of Strings
• Functions
– strlen
– strcpy
– strcmp
– strcat Q&A
– strstr
• Arrays of Strings
– Input and Output
– Passing to Functions
– Sorting an Array of Names

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