In C - check if a char exists in a char array

Question

I'm trying to check if a character belongs to a list/array of invalid characters.

Coming from a Python background, I used to be able to just say :

for c in string:
    if c in invalid_characters:
        #do stuff, etc

How can I do this with regular C char arrays?

Answer 1

strchr for searching a char from start (strrchr from the end):

  char str[] = "This is a sample string";

  if (strchr(str, 'h') != NULL) {
      /* h is in str */
  }

Answer 2

The equivalent C code looks like this:

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

// This code outputs: h is in "This is my test string"
int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
   const char *invalid_characters = "hz";
   char *mystring = "This is my test string";
   char *c = mystring;
   while (*c)
   {
       if (strchr(invalid_characters, *c))
       {
          printf("%c is in \"%s\"\n", *c, mystring);
       }

       c++;
   }

   return 0;
}

Note that invalid_characters is a C string, ie. a null-terminated char array.

Answer 3

Assuming your input is a standard null-terminated C string, you want to use strchr:

#include <string.h>

char* foo = "abcdefghijkl";
if (strchr(foo, 'a') != NULL)
{
  // do stuff
}

If on the other hand your array is not null-terminated (i.e. just raw data), you'll need to use memchr and provide a size:

#include <string.h>

char foo[] = { 'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e' }; // note last element isn't '\0'
if (memchr(foo, 'a', sizeof(foo)))
{
  // do stuff
}

Answer 4

I believe the original question said:

a character belongs to a list/array of invalid characters

and not:

belongs to a null-terminated string

which, if it did, then strchr would indeed be the most suitable answer. If, however, there is no null termination to an array of chars or if the chars are in a list structure, then you will need to either create a null-terminated string and use strchr or manually iterate over the elements in the collection, checking each in turn. If the collection is small, then a linear search will be fine. A large collection may need a more suitable structure to improve the search times - a sorted array or a balanced binary tree for example.

Pick whatever works best for you situation.

Answer 5

You want

strchr (const char *s, int c)

If the character c is in the string s it returns a pointer to the location in s. Otherwise it returns NULL. So just use your list of invalid characters as the string.

Answer 6

use strchr function when dealing with C strings.

const char * strchr ( const char * str, int character );

Here is an example of what you want to do.

/* strchr example */
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

int main ()
{
  char invalids[] = ".@<>#";
  char * pch;
  pch=strchr(invalids,'s');//is s an invalid character?
  if (pch!=NULL)
  {
    printf ("Invalid character");
  }
  else 
  {
     printf("Valid character");
  } 
  return 0;
}

Use memchr when dealing with memory blocks (as not null terminated arrays)

const void * memchr ( const void * ptr, int value, size_t num );

/* memchr example */
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

int main ()
{
  char * pch;
  char invalids[] = "@<>#";
  pch = (char*) memchr (invalids, 'p', strlen(invalids));
  if (pch!=NULL)
    printf (p is an invalid character);
  else
    printf ("p valid character.\n");
  return 0;
}

http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/clibrary/cstring/memchr/

http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/clibrary/cstring/strchr/