CODEWITHSUNDEEP
cstringvariablesprintf
nattinthehat
nattinthehat

Reputation: 11

What is the proper format for defining and printing string variables in C?

I'm an absolute beginner to C, I've had some experiences with other high level languages like Ruby and Python, but other than that I'm also a beginner to programming in general. I've been trying to figure out how to define a string variable and print it using something like the "printf" function, but so far I've had no luck since my code just keeps spitting out error messages.

From what I understand, something like this should define a string variable and then print it to the console:

char string[3];
string = "hi";
printf ("%s", string);

But this doesn't work, so what is the correct way to do this?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 109

Answers (1)

unwind
unwind

Reputation: 400019

This doesn't work because you cannot assign to arrays in C, except when initializing them.

So, you can do:

char string[3] = "hi";

which is better (safer) written as:

char string[] = "hi";

this lets the compiler worry about the character-count, and is generally preferable.

To change the array contents after initialization, you must use some function that can copy the characters, you cannot do this with a single assignment:

strcpy(string, "yo");

note that this is dangerous since strcpy() will not be aware of the array's limit of 3 characters.

Upvotes: 4

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