I have a char array filled with some characters. Let's say I have "HelloWorld" in my char array. (not string. taking up index of 0 to 9)
What I'm trying to do is insert a character in the middle of the array, and push the rest to the side to make room for the new character that is being inserted.
So, I can make the char array to have "Hello.World" in it.
char ch[15]; // assume it has "HelloWorld" in it
for(int i=0; i<=strlen(ch)-1; i++) {
if(ch[i]=='o' && ch[i+1]=='W') {
for(int j=strlen(ch)-1; j>=i+2; j--) {
ch[j] = ch[j-1]; // pushing process?
}
ch[i+1] = '.';
break;
}
}
Would this work? Would there be an easier way? I might just be thinking way too complicated on this.
If you want to move all the characters up by one, then you could do it using memmove
.
#include <string.h>
char ch[15];
int make_room_at = 5;
int room_to_make = 1;
memmove(
ch + make_room_at + room_to_make,
ch + make_room_at,
15 - (make_room_at + room_to_make)
);
You need to start the inner loop from strlen(ch) + 1
, not strlen(ch) - 1
, because you need to move the NULL-terminator to the right one place as well. Remember that strlen
returns the length of the string such that string[strlen(string)] == '\0'
; you can think of strlen
as a function for obtaining the index of the NULL-terminator of a C-string.
Simply do:
#define SHIFT 1
char bla[32] = "HelloWorld"; // We reserve enough room for this example
char *ptr = bla + 5; // pointer to "World"
memmove(ptr + SHIFT, ptr, strlen(ptr) + 1); // +1 for the trailing null
The initial starting value for the inner loop is one short. It should be something like the following. Note too that since the characters are moved to the right, a new null terminator needs to be added:
ch[strlen(ch) + 1] = '\0';
for(j=strlen(ch); j>=i+2; j--) { // note no "-1" after the strlen
Edit As far as the "Is this a good way?" part, I think it is reasonable; it just depends on the intended purpose. A couple thoughts come to mind:
- Reducing the calls to strlen might be good. It could depend on how good the optimizer is (perhaps some might be optimized out). But each call to strlen require a scan of the string looking for the null terminator. In high traffic code, that can add up. So storing the initial length in a variable and then using the variable elsewhere could help.
- This type of operation has the chance for buffer overflow. Always make sure the buffer is long enough (it is in the OP).
If you're going to manipulate a char array you shouldn't make it static. By doing this:
char ch[15];
you're hardcoding the array to always have 15 characters in it. Making it a pointer would be step 1:
char* ch;
This way you can modify it as need be.