Cannot assign a string to an array [duplicate]

Question

I need to create a structure whose member is an character array like below:

struct Person{
    char name [100];

};

Why the below results in a incompatible types error? And how to fix it?

struct Person john;
john.name = "John";

what is the difference between the assignment above and bellow, which works well:

char str[100] = "this is a string";

It may help if you think that C has no strings. It does have string literals, which can be used in a few different ways, and it has standard library functions for manipulating byte sequences where 0-byte marks the end, AKA "strings". But if you are used to strings of almost any other language, these are not something you would call "strings". — hyde
– hyde, Commented Mar 18, 2015 at 15:41

haccks · Accepted Answer · 2015-03-18 15:34:50Z

1

john.name = "John"; is an assignment (which is not possible in this case) while

char str[100] = "this is a string";

is definition with initialization.

john.name = "John"; is an invalid statement in C because an array can't be a left operand of = operator. You need strcpy or strncpy to copy a string.

answered Mar 18, 2015 at 15:34

haccks

107k28 gold badges181 silver badges274 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Comments

user3920237 · Accepted Answer · 2015-03-18 15:36:06Z

0

C doesn't allow you to use the assignment operator with arrays. There is a special provision that allows you to initialize arrays with string literals:

struct Person john = {"John"};

answered Mar 18, 2015 at 15:36

user3920237

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Cannot assign a string to an array [duplicate]

2 Answers 2

Comments

Comments

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

Comments

Comments

Linked

Related