How to read from stdin with fgets()?

Question

I've written the following code to read a line from a terminal window, the problem is the code gets stuck in an infinite loop. The line/sentence is of undefined length, therefore I plan to read it in parts into the buffer, then concatenate it to another string which can be extended via realloc accordingly. Please can somebody spot my mistake or suggest a better way of achieving this?

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

#define BUFFERSIZE 10

int main (int argc, char *argv[])
{
    char buffer[BUFFERSIZE];
    printf("Enter a message: \n");
    while(fgets(buffer, BUFFERSIZE , stdin) != NULL)
    {
        printf("%s\n", buffer);
    }
    return 0;
}

Answer 1

If you want to concatenate the input, then replace printf("%s\n", buffer); with strcat(big_buffer, buffer);. Also create and initialize the big buffer at the beginning: char *big_buffer = new char[BIG_BUFFERSIZE]; big_buffer[0] = '\0';. You should also prevent a buffer overrun by verifying the current buffer length plus the new buffer length does not exceed the limit: if ((strlen(big_buffer) + strlen(buffer)) < BIG_BUFFERSIZE). The modified program would look like this:

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

#define BUFFERSIZE 10
#define BIG_BUFFERSIZE 1024

int main (int argc, char *argv[])
{
    char buffer[BUFFERSIZE];
    char *big_buffer = new char[BIG_BUFFERSIZE];
    big_buffer[0] = '\0';
    printf("Enter a message: \n");
    while(fgets(buffer, BUFFERSIZE , stdin) != NULL)
    {
        if ((strlen(big_buffer) + strlen(buffer)) < BIG_BUFFERSIZE)
        {
            strcat(big_buffer, buffer);
        }
    }
    return 0;
}

Answer 2

here a concatenation solution:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#define BUFFERSIZE 10

int main() {
  char *text = calloc(1,1), buffer[BUFFERSIZE];
  printf("Enter a message: \n");
  while( fgets(buffer, BUFFERSIZE , stdin) ) /* break with ^D or ^Z */
  {
    text = realloc( text, strlen(text)+1+strlen(buffer) );
    if( !text ) ... /* error handling */
    strcat( text, buffer ); /* note a '\n' is appended here everytime */
    printf("%s\n", buffer);
  }
  printf("\ntext:\n%s",text);
  return 0;
}

Answer 3

You have a wrong idea of what fgets returns. Take a look at this: http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/clibrary/cstdio/fgets/

It returns null when it finds an EOF character. Try running the program above and pressing CTRL+D (or whatever combination is your EOF character), and the loop will exit succesfully.

How do you want to detect the end of the input? Newline? Dot (you said sentence xD)?

Answer 4

Exits the loop if the line is empty(Improving code).

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

// The value BUFFERSIZE can be changed to customer's taste . Changes the
// size of the base array (string buffer )    
#define BUFFERSIZE 10

int main(void)
{
    char buffer[BUFFERSIZE];
    char cChar;
    printf("Enter a message: \n");
    while(*(fgets(buffer, BUFFERSIZE, stdin)) != '\n')
    {
        // For concatenation
        // fgets reads and adds '\n' in the string , replace '\n' by '\0' to 
        // remove the line break .
/*      if(buffer[strlen(buffer) - 1] == '\n')
            buffer[strlen(buffer) - 1] = '\0'; */
        printf("%s", buffer);
        // Corrects the error mentioned by Alain BECKER.       
        // Checks if the string buffer is full to check and prevent the 
        // next character read by fgets is '\n' .
        if(strlen(buffer) == (BUFFERSIZE - 1) && (buffer[strlen(buffer) - 1] != '\n'))
        {
            // Prevents end of the line '\n' to be read in the first 
            // character (Loop Exit) in the next loop. Reads
            // the next char in stdin buffer , if '\n' is read and removed, if
            // different is returned to stdin 
            cChar = fgetc(stdin);
            if(cChar != '\n')
                ungetc(cChar, stdin);
            // To print correctly if '\n' is removed.
            else
                printf("\n");
        }
    }
    return 0;
}

Exit when Enter is pressed.

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

#define BUFFERSIZE 16

int main(void)
{
    char buffer[BUFFERSIZE];
    printf("Enter a message: \n");
    while(true)
    {
        assert(fgets(buffer, BUFFERSIZE, stdin) != NULL);
        // Verifies that the previous character to the last character in the
        // buffer array is '\n' (The last character is '\0') if the
        // character is '\n' leaves loop.
        if(buffer[strlen(buffer) - 1] == '\n')
        {
            // fgets reads and adds '\n' in the string, replace '\n' by '\0' to 
            // remove the line break .
            buffer[strlen(buffer) - 1] = '\0';
            printf("%s", buffer);
            break;
        }
        printf("%s", buffer);   
    }
    return 0;
}

Concatenation and dinamic allocation(linked list) to a single string.

/* Autor : Tiago Portela
   Email : [e-mail]
   Sobre : Compilado com TDM-GCC 5.10 64-bit e LCC-Win32 64-bit;
   Obs : Apenas tentando aprender algoritimos, sozinho, por hobby. */

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdbool.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <assert.h>

#define BUFFERSIZE 8

typedef struct _Node {
    char *lpBuffer;
    struct _Node *LpProxNode;
} Node_t, *LpNode_t;

int main(void)
{
    char acBuffer[BUFFERSIZE] = {0};
    LpNode_t lpNode = (LpNode_t)malloc(sizeof(Node_t));
    assert(lpNode!=NULL);
    LpNode_t lpHeadNode = lpNode;
    char* lpBuffer = (char*)calloc(1,sizeof(char));
    assert(lpBuffer!=NULL);
    char cChar;


    printf("Enter a message: \n");
    // Exit when Enter is pressed
/*  while(true)
    {
        assert(fgets(acBuffer, BUFFERSIZE, stdin)!=NULL);
        lpNode->lpBuffer = (char*)malloc((strlen(acBuffer) + 1) * sizeof(char));
        assert(lpNode->lpBuffer!=NULL);
        strcpy(lpNode->lpBuffer, acBuffer);
        if(lpNode->lpBuffer[strlen(acBuffer) - 1] == '\n')
        {
            lpNode->lpBuffer[strlen(acBuffer) - 1] = '\0';
            lpNode->LpProxNode = NULL;
            break;
        }
        lpNode->LpProxNode = (LpNode_t)malloc(sizeof(Node_t));
        lpNode = lpNode->LpProxNode;
        assert(lpNode!=NULL);
    }*/

    // Exits the loop if the line is empty(Improving code).
    while(true)
    {
        assert(fgets(acBuffer, BUFFERSIZE, stdin)!=NULL);
        lpNode->lpBuffer = (char*)malloc((strlen(acBuffer) + 1) * sizeof(char));
        assert(lpNode->lpBuffer!=NULL);
        strcpy(lpNode->lpBuffer, acBuffer);
        if(acBuffer[strlen(acBuffer) - 1] == '\n')
            lpNode->lpBuffer[strlen(acBuffer) - 1] = '\0';
        if(strlen(acBuffer) == (BUFFERSIZE - 1) && (acBuffer[strlen(acBuffer) - 1] != '\n'))
        {
            cChar = fgetc(stdin);
            if(cChar != '\n')
                ungetc(cChar, stdin);
        }
        if(acBuffer[0] == '\n')
        {
            lpNode->LpProxNode = NULL;
            break;
        }
        lpNode->LpProxNode = (LpNode_t)malloc(sizeof(Node_t));
        lpNode = lpNode->LpProxNode;
        assert(lpNode!=NULL);
    }


    printf("\nPseudo String :\n");
    lpNode = lpHeadNode;
    while(lpNode != NULL)
    {
        printf("%s", lpNode->lpBuffer);
        lpNode = lpNode->LpProxNode;
    }


    printf("\n\nMemory blocks:\n");
    lpNode = lpHeadNode;
    while(lpNode != NULL)
    {
        printf("Block \"%7s\" size = %lu\n", lpNode->lpBuffer, (long unsigned)(strlen(lpNode->lpBuffer) + 1));
        lpNode = lpNode->LpProxNode;
    }


    printf("\nConcatenated string:\n");
    lpNode = lpHeadNode;
    while(lpNode != NULL)
    {
        lpBuffer = (char*)realloc(lpBuffer, (strlen(lpBuffer) + strlen(lpNode->lpBuffer)) + 1);
        strcat(lpBuffer, lpNode->lpBuffer);
        lpNode = lpNode->LpProxNode;
    }
    printf("%s", lpBuffer);
    printf("\n\n");

    // Deallocate memory
    lpNode = lpHeadNode;
    while(lpNode != NULL)
    {
        lpHeadNode = lpNode->LpProxNode;
        free(lpNode->lpBuffer);
        free(lpNode);
        lpNode = lpHeadNode;
    }
    lpBuffer = (char*)realloc(lpBuffer, 0);
    lpBuffer = NULL;
    if((lpNode == NULL) && (lpBuffer == NULL))
    {

        printf("Deallocate memory = %s", (char*)lpNode);
    }
    printf("\n\n");

    return 0;
}

Answer 5

Assuming that you only want to read a single line, then use LINE_MAX, which is defined in <limits.h>:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <limits.h>
...
char line[LINE_MAX];
...
if (fgets(line, LINE_MAX, stdin) != NULL) {
...
}
...