If I want to read in a string of arbitrary length from the command line, what's the best way of going about it?
At the moment I'm doing this:
char name_buffer [ 80 ];
int chars_read = 0;
while ( ( chars_read < 80 ) && ( !feof( stdin ) ) ) {
name_buffer [ chars_read ] = fgetc ( stdin );
chars_read++;
}
But what can I do if the string is longer than 80 characters? Obviously I could just initialise the array to a bigger number but I'm sure there must be a better way to give the array more space using malloc or something?
Any hints would be great.
Found this somewhere on the net long ago, its really useful:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main()
{
unsigned int len_max = 128;
unsigned int current_size = 0;
char *pStr = malloc(len_max);
current_size = len_max;
printf("\nEnter a very very very long String value:");
if(pStr != NULL)
{
int c = EOF;
unsigned int i =0;
//accept user input until hit enter or end of file
while (( c = getchar() ) != '\n' && c != EOF)
{
pStr[i++]=(char)c;
//if i reached maximize size then realloc size
if(i == current_size)
{
current_size = i+len_max;
pStr = realloc(pStr, current_size);
}
}
pStr[i] = '\0';
printf("\nLong String value:%s \n\n",pStr);
//free it
free(pStr);
pStr = NULL;
}
return 0;
}
Use realloc()
to allocate the buffer and extend it when it's full.