CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c
dadaturk
dadaturk

Reputation: 39

Separate full name in C

I want to separate the whole name into only first and last name, but the name can be more than one. I wrote a code like this, but this code is only set to 2 names.

for (int i = 0; i < size; i++) {
    char* first = strtok(temp[i].full, " ");
    char* second = strtok(NULL, " ");
    char* last = strtok(NULL, " ");
    if (last == NULL) {
        strcpy(data[i].name, first);
        strcpy(data[i].surname, second);
    }
    else{
        strcpy(data[i].name, first);
        strcpy(data[i].secName, second);
        strcpy(data[i].surname, last);
    }
}

But the format I need is:

full name : jack joe woo
name: jack joe
surname: woo

or

full name : jack joe jes woo
name: jack joe jes
surname: woo

How can I get only the last word as a surname and the rest as a name?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 509

Answers (2)

Andreas Wenzel
Andreas Wenzel

Reputation: 25116

Here is a solution which uses strtok:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

//Note that this function will modify the string,
//because that is the way that strtok behaves.
void print_names( char *full_name )
{
    char *current, *next;

    printf( "full name: %s\n", full_name );

    current = strtok( full_name, " " );

    printf( "first names:" );

    while( (next = strtok( NULL, " " )) != NULL )
    {
        printf( " %s", current );
        current = next;
    }

    printf( "\nlast name: %s\n", current );
}

int main( void )
{
    //Note that the string we pass to the function must
    //be writable, because the function uses strtok.
    char test_string[] = "jack joe jes woo";
    print_names( test_string );
}

This program has the following output:

full name: jack joe jes woo
first names: jack joe jes
last name: woo

However, using strtok has several disadvantages:

  1. It modifies the string that it is working on.
  2. It is not thread-safe.

Therefore, I have provided an alternate solution which does not use strtok, but uses strrchr instead:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

void print_names( const char *full_name )
{
    printf( "full name: %s\n", full_name );

    char *p = strrchr( full_name, ' ' );
    if ( p == NULL )
    {
        fprintf( stderr, "parse error\n" );
        return;
    }

    printf( "first names: %.*s\n", (int)(p - full_name), full_name );

    printf( "last name: %s\n", p + 1 );
}

int main( void )
{
    //Note that we can now pass a read-only string
    //string, because we are not using strtok anymore.
    print_names( "jack joe jes woo" );
}

This program has exactly the same output as the other program.

Upvotes: 1

Barmar
Barmar

Reputation: 781721

Use strrchr() to search for the last space character. Everything before that is the first name, everything after is the last name.

char *lname = strrchr(temp[i].full, ' ');
if (lname) {
    *lname = '\0'; // replace space with null terminator
    lname++; // point to the beginning of last name
    strcpy(data[i].name, temp[i].full);
    strcpy(data[i].surname, lname);
}

Upvotes: 2

Related Questions