Trying to print character array in C

Question

I am trying to print array of characters in C, but the array is not printing if any blank space occurs. This is my code:

int main() {
    char str[100];
    int len = 0;

    printf("Enter the string");
    scanf("%s", str);
    len = strlen(str);

    int i = 0;
    for (i = 0; i < len; i++) { 
       printf("%s", str[i]); 
    }    

    getch();
}

Input: Bangalore is in India
Output: Bangalore

Any suggestions?

%s is the format specifier for a string. You are trying to print one character at a time (str[i]). So you should either, just once, do printf("%s\n", str); or, in your loop, do printf("%c", str[i]); and follow that with printf("\n"); (newline string) or putch('\n'); (newline char). — lurker
– lurker, Commented Apr 5, 2014 at 2:39
This probably isn't that relevant but have you considered using fgets instead? — PakkuDon
– PakkuDon, Commented Apr 5, 2014 at 2:43

Jonathan Leffler · Accepted Answer · 2014-04-05 02:46:53Z

5

With scanf() , the %s format skips leading white space, then scans non-white space characters and stops at the next white space in the input line.

That means that only Bangalore is read, so only Bangalore is printed.

If you want a whole line of input, you should probably use fgets().

You should also be getting warnings from your compiler about your printing code. You probably want to use this without a loop:

printf("%s\n", str);

or this within a loop:

printf("%c", str[i]);

though this would be faster:

putchar(str[i]);

and you would need to worry about adding a newline at the end (putchar('\n'); after the loop).

answered Apr 5, 2014 at 2:46

Jonathan Leffler

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2 Comments

Harsh Over a year ago

Even this would print only bangalore .... I want the whole string to be printed...

Jonathan Leffler Over a year ago

To read in the whole string rather than just Bangalore, you have to read the whole string. Like I said, you need to use fgets() unless you want to use " %99[^\n]" instead of "%s" in your scanf call. It is fiendishly difficult to use scanf() and its relatives correctly. They're seductively simple on the surface, but horribly complex once you start getting down to real business with them.

Udit Mukherjee · Accepted Answer · 2015-12-14 15:31:36Z

1

Reading input from terminal would stop if it encountered a space or a new line. You could do 2 things to get what you need

Use fgets, ex : fgets(str, 100, stdin)
Tell scanf to read input while it's not a newline like this scanf ("%[^\n]%*c", str);

and the second thing,if you are printing out character arrays, you must use %c

edited Dec 14, 2015 at 15:31

answered Apr 5, 2014 at 2:48

Udit Mukherjee

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Comments

Ed Heal · Accepted Answer · 2014-04-05 02:44:44Z

0

Read the manual pages

you need %c not %s

answered Apr 5, 2014 at 2:44

Ed Heal

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