How do I scan spaces into a a string?

Question

I am trying to scan in 1-3 words from the user into a string. However, Only the first word will scan.

Answer 1

One possibility is to use a scan set conversion instead of a string conversion:

char buffer[256];
scanf("%255[^\n]", buffer);

Much like fgets, this reads up to the end of the line rather than stopping at the first white-space character.

Answer 2

scanf("%s", &area ) ;

scanf stops reading from the stream when a space is encountered. You need to use getline instead.