Sams Teach Yourself C in 21 Days

Working with Characters and Strings 241

10

Thegets()Function

#include <stdio.h>

char *gets(char *str);

Thegets()function gets a string,str, from the standard input device, usually the key-

board. The string consists of any characters entered until a newline character is read. At

that point, a null is appended to the end of the string.

Then the gets()function returns a pointer to the string just read. If there is a problem

getting the string,gets()returns null.

Example

/* gets() example */

#include <stdio.h>

char line[256];

void main( void )

{

printf( “Enter a string:\n”);

gets( line );

printf( “\nYou entered the following string:\n” );

printf( “%s\n”, line );

}

Inputting Strings Using the scanf()Function ..............................................

You saw on Day 7 that the scanf()library function accepts numeric data input from the

keyboard. This function can also input strings. Remember that scanf()uses a format

stringthat tells it how to read the information entered. To read a string, include the speci-

fier%sinscanf()’s format string. Like gets(),scanf()is passed a pointer to the

string’s storage location.

How does scanf()decide where the string begins and ends? The beginning is the first

non-whitespace character encountered. The end can be specified in one of two ways. If

you use %sin the format string, the string runs up to (but not including) the next white-

space character (space, tab, or newline). If you use %ns(wherenis an integer constant

that specifies field width),scanf()accepts the next ncharacters or up to the next white-

space character, whichever comes first.

You can read in multiple strings with scanf()by including more than one %sin the for-

mat string. For each %sin the format string,scanf()uses the preceding rules to find the

requested number of strings in the input. For example

scanf(“%s%s%s”, s1, s2, s3);

If in response to this statement you enter January February March,Januaryis assigned

to the string s1,Februaryis assigned to s2, andMarchtos3.

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YNTAX

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