Strings

Introduction
Reading and displaying strings
Passing strings to function
String handling functions
 Introduction
• Strings are array of characters i.e. they are
characters arranged one after another in
memory. Thus, a character array is called
string.
• Each character within the string is stored
within one element of the array successively.
• A string is always terminated by a null
character (i.e. slash zero \0).
 Arrays and Strings…
• Operations performed on character strings
include:
– Reading and writing strings
– Copying one string to another
– Combining strings together
– Comparing strings for equality
– Extracting a portion of a string
• A string variable is declared as an array of
characters.
• Syntax:
char string_name[size];
• E.g. char name[20];
• When the compiler assigns a character string
to a character array, it automatically supplies a
null character (‘\0’) at the end of the string
 Initializing String Variables
• Strings are initialized in either of the following two forms:
char name[4]={‘R’,‘A’,‘M’, ‘\0’};
char name[]={‘R’,‘A’,‘M’, ‘\0’};

R A M \0
char name[4]=“RAM”;
name[0] name[1] name[2] name[3]
char name[]=“RAM”;
• When we initialize a character array by listing its
elements, the null terminator or the size of the array
must be provided explicitly.
 Reading and displaying Strings
• It can be done manually.
Using printf() and scanf()
Using gets() and puts()
Passing String to function
 String handling functions
• Strings need to be manipulated by
programmer.
• It can be done manually but is time
consuming.
 Counting length of the string
#include <stdio.h>
#include <conio.h>
void main()
{
char input_string[50];
int i=0, length=0;
clrscr();
printf("\nEnter your text:\t");
gets(input_string);
while(input_string[i]!='\0')
{
length++;
i++;
}
printf("\nThe length of your text is: %d character(s)", length);
getch();
}
 Copying one string to another
#include <stdio.h>
#include <conio.h>
void main()
{
char copy[50], paste[50];
int i;
clrscr();
printf("\nEnter your name (to copy):\t");
gets(copy);
for(i=0;copy[i]!='\0';i++)
{
paste[i]=copy[i];
}
paste[i]='\0';
printf("\nThe name is (pasted as):\t");
puts(paste);
getch();
}
• There are various string handling functions
define in string.h some of them are:
void main()
{
char input_string[50];
int length;
clrscr();
printf("\nEnter your text:\t");
gets(input_string);
length=strlen(input_string);
printf("\nThe length of your text is: %d character(s)", length);
getch();
}

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void main()
{
char copy[50], paste[50];
int i;
clrscr();
printf("\nEnter your name (to copy):\t");
gets(copy);
strcpy(paste, copy);
printf("\nThe name is (pasted as):\t");
puts(paste);
getch();
}
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void main()
{
char first_name[30]=“College " ;
char middle_name[]=" of Applied";
char last_name[]=" Business";
clrscr();
strcat(first_name,middle_name);
puts(first_name);
strcat(first_name,last_name);
puts(first_name);
getch();
}
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void main()
{
char str1[30],str2[40];
int diff;
clrscr();
printf("Enter first string:\t");
gets(str1);
printf("\nEnter second string:\t");
gets(str2);
diff=strcmp(str1, str2);
if(diff>0)
printf("\n%s is greater than %s by ASCII value difference %d", str1,
str2, diff);
else if(diff<0)
printf("\n%s is smaller than %s by ASCII value difference %d", str1,
str2, diff);
else
printf("\n%s is same as %s", str1, str2);
getch();
}
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void main()
{
char string[25];
clrscr();
printf("\nInput string to be reversed:");
gets(string);
strrev(string);
printf("\nThe reversed string is: %s", string);
getch();
}

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 Arrays of Strings
• String is array of characters.
• Thus an array of string is 2-D array of
characters.
• E.g.
char names[5][10];
• Here, names[5][10] means 5 names having 10
characters each.

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 Classwork
• WAP to read name of 5 persons using array of
strings and display them
• WAP to sort name of 5 persons in alphabetical
order
void main()
{
char names[5][10];
int i;
clrscr();
printf("\nEnter name of 5 persons:");
for(i=0;i<5;i++)
scanf("%s", names[i]);

printf("\nThe names are:");

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void main()
{
char names[5][10],temp[10];
int i, j;
clrscr();
printf("\nEnter name of 5 persons:");
for(i=0;i<5;i++)
gets(names[i]);

for(i=0;i<5;i++)
{
for(j=i+1;j<5;j++)
{
if(strcmp(names[i], names[j])>0)
{
strcpy(temp, names[i]);
strcpy(names[i], names[j]);
strcpy(names[j], temp);
}
}
}
printf("\nNames in ascending order:\n");
for(i=0;i<5;i++)
puts(names[i]);
getch();
}

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