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Chapter 7 - Strings and Arrays
WHAT IS A STRING?
A string is a group of characters, usually letters of
the alphabet. In order to format your printout in such a
way that it looks nice, has meaningful titles and names, and
is esthetically pleasing to you and the people using the
output of your program, you need the ability to output text
data. Actually you have already been using strings, because
the second program in this tutorial, way back in Chapter 2,
output a message that was handled internally as a string. A
complete definition is a series of "char" type data
terminated by a NULL character, which is a zero.
When C is going to use a string of data in some way,
either to compare it with another, output it, copy it to
another string, or whatever, the functions are set up to do
what they are called to do until a NULL, which is a zero, is
detected.
WHAT IS AN ARRAY?
An array is a series of homogeneous pieces of data that
are all identical in type, but the type can be quite complex
as we will see when we get to the chapter of this tutorial
discussing structures. A string is simply a special case of
an array, a series of char type data.
The best way to see these principles is by use of an
example, so load the program CHRSTRG.C and display it on
your monitor. The first thing new is the line that defines
a "char" type of data entity. The square brackets define an
array subscript in C, and in the case of the data definition
statement, the 5 in the brackets defines 5 data fields of
type "char" all defined as the variable "name". In the C
language, all subscripts start at 0 and increase by 1 each
step up to the maximum which in this case is 4. We
therefore have 5 "char" type variables named, "name[0]",
"name[1]", "name[2]", "name[3]", and "name[4]". You must
keep in mind that in C, the subscripts actually go from 0 to
one less than the number defined in the definition
statement. This is due to the original definition of C and
these limits cannot be changed or redefined by the
programmer.
HOW DO WE USE THE STRING?
The variable "name" is therefore a string which can
hold up to 5 characters, but since we need room for the NULL
terminating character, there are actually only four useful
characters. To load something useful into the string, we
have 5 statements, each of which assigns one alphabetical
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Chapter 7 - Strings and Arrays
character to one of the string characters. Finally, the
last place in the string is filled with the numeral 0 as the
end indicator and the string is complete. (A "define" would
allow us to use "NULL" instead of a zero, and this would add
greatly to the clarity of the program. It would be very
obvious that this was a NULL and not simply a zero for some
other purpose.) Now that we have the string, we will simply
print it out with some other string data in the output
statement.
The %s is the output definition to output a string and
the system will output characters starting with the first
one in "name" until it comes to the NULL character, and it
will quit. Notice that in the "printf" statement, only the
variable name "name" needs to be given, with no subscript
since we are interested in starting at the beginning.
(There is actually another reason that only the variable
name is given without brackets. The discussion of that
topic will be given in the next chapter.)
OUTPUTTING PART OF A STRING
The next "printf" illustrates that we can output any
single character of the string by using the "%c" and naming
the particular character of "name" we want by including the
subscript. The last "printf" illustrates how we can output
part of the string by stating the starting point by using a
subscript. The & specifies the address of "name[1]". We
will study this in the next chapter but I thought you would
benefit from a little glimpse ahead.
This example may make you feel that strings are rather
cumbersome to use since you have to set up each character
one at a time. That is an incorrect conclusion because
strings are very easy to use as we will see in the next
example program.
Compile and run this program.
SOME STRING SUBROUTINES
Load the example program STRINGS.C for an example of
some ways to use strings. First we define four strings.
Next we come to a new function that you will find very
useful, the "strcpy" function, or string copy. It copies
from one string to another until it comes to the NULL
character. Remember that the NULL is actually a "0" and is
added to the character string by the system. It is easy to
remember which one gets copied to which if you think of them
like an assignment statement. Thus if you were to say, for
example, "x = 23;", the data is copied from the right entity
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Chapter 7 - Strings and Arrays
to the left one. In the "strcpy" function, the data is also
copied from the right entity to the left, so that after
execution of the first statement, name1 will contain the
string "Rosalinda", but without the double quotes, they are
the compiler's way of knowing that you are defining a
string.
Likewise, "Zeke" is copied into "name2" by the second
statement, then the "title" is copied. The title and both
names are then printed out. Note that it is not necessary
for the defined string to be exactly the same size as the
string it will be called upon to store, only that it is at
least as long as the string plus one more character for the
NULL.
ALPHABETICAL SORTING OF STRINGS
The next function we will look at is the "strcmp" or
the string compare function. It will return a 1 if the
first string is larger than the second, zero if they are the
same length and have the same characters, and -1 if the
first string is smaller than the second. One of the
strings, depending on the result of the compare is copied
into the variable "mixed", and the largest name
alphabetically is printed out. It should come as no
surprise to you that "Zeke" wins because it is
alphabetically larger, length doesn't matter, only the
alphabet. It might be wise to mention that the result would
also depend on whether the letters were upper or lower case.
There are functions available with your C compiler to change
the case of a string to all upper or all lower case if you
desire. These will be used in an example program later in
this tutorial.
COMBINING STRINGS
The last four statements have another new feature, the
"strcat", or string concatenation function. This function
simply adds the characters from one string onto the end of
another string taking care to adjust the NULL so everything
is still all right. In this case, "name1" is copied into
"mixed", then two blanks are concatenated to "mixed", and
finally "name2" is concatenated to the combination. The
result is printed out with both names in the one variable
"mixed".
Strings are not difficult and are extremely useful.
You should spend some time getting familiar with them before
proceeding on to the next topic.
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Chapter 7 - Strings and Arrays
Compile and run this program and observe the results
for compliance with this definition.
AN ARRAY OF INTEGERS
Load the file INTARRAY.C and display it on your monitor
for an example of an array of integers. Notice that the
array is defined in much the same way we defined an array of
char in order to do the string manipulations in the last
section. We have 12 integer variables to work with not
counting the one named "index". The names of the variables
are "values[0]", "values[1]", ... , and "values[11]". Next
we have a loop to assign nonsense, but well defined, data to
each of the 12 variables, then print all 12 out. Note
carefully that each element of the array is simply an "int"
type variable capable of storing an integer value. The only
difference between the variables "index" and "values[2]",
for example, is in the way you address them. You should
have no trouble following this program, but be sure you
understand it. Compile and run it to see if it does what
you expect it to do.
AN ARRAY OF FLOATING POINT DATA
Load and display the program named BIGARRAY.C for an
example of a program with an array of "float" type data.
This program has an extra feature to illustrate how strings
can be initialized. The second line of the program
illustrates to you how to initialize a string of characters.
Notice that the square brackets are empty leaving it up to
the compiler to count the characters and allocate enough
space for our string including the terminating NULL.
Another string is initialized in the body of the program but
it must be declared "static" here. This prevents it from
being allocated as an "automatic" variable and allows it to
retain the string once the program is started. There is
nothing else new here, the variables are assigned nonsense
data and the results of all the nonsense are printed out
along with a header. This program should also be easy for
you to follow, so study it until you are sure of what it is
doing before going on to the next topic.
GETTING DATA BACK FROM A FUNCTION
Back in chapter 5 when we studied functions, I hinted
to you that there was a way to get data back from a function
by using an array, and that is true. Load the program
PASSBACK.C for an example of doing that. In this program,
we define an array of 20 variables named "matrix", then
assign some nonsense data to the variables, and print out
the first five. Then we call the function "dosome" taking
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Chapter 7 - Strings and Arrays
along the entire array by putting the name of the array in
the parentheses.
The function "dosome" has a name in its parentheses
also but it prefers to call the array "list". The function
needs to be told that it is really getting an array passed
to it and that the array is of type "int". Line 20 does
that by defining "list" as an integer type variable and
including the square brackets to indicate an array. It is
not necessary to tell the function how many elements are in
the array, but you could if you so desired. Generally a
function works with an array until some end-of-data marker
is found, such as a NULL for a string, or some other
previously defined data or pattern. Many times, another
piece of data is passed to the function with a count of how
many elements to work with. In our present illustration, we
will use a fixed number of elements to keep it simple.
So far nothing is different from the previous functions
we have called except that we have passed more data points
to the function this time than we ever have before, having
passed 20 integer values. We print out the first 5 again to
see if they did indeed get passed here. Then we add ten to
each of the elements and print out the new values. Finally
we return to the main program and print out the same 5 data
points. We find that we have indeed modified the data in
the function, and when we returned to the main program, we
brought the changes back. Compile and run this program to
verify this conclusion.
ARRAYS PASS DATA BOTH WAYS
We stated during our study of functions that when we
passed data to a function, the system made a copy to use in
the function which was thrown away when we returned. This
is not the case with arrays. The actual array is passed to
the function and the function can modify it any way it
wishes to. The result of the modifications will be
available back in the calling program. This may seem
strange to you that arrays are handled differently from
single point data, but they are. It really does make sense,
but you will have to wait until we get to pointers to
understand it.
A HINT AT A FUTURE LESSON
Another way of getting data back from a function to the
calling program is by using pointers which we will cover in
the next chapter. When we get there we will find that an
array is in reality a pointer to a list of values. Don't
let that worry you now, it will make sense when we get
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Chapter 7 - Strings and Arrays
there. In the meantime concentrate on arrays and understand
the basics of them because when we get to the study of
structures we will be able to define some pretty elaborate
arrays.
MULTIPLY DIMENSIONED ARRAYS
Load and display the file named MULTIARY.C for an
example of a program with doubly dimensioned arrays. The
variable "big" is an 8 by 8 array that contains 8 times 8 or
64 elements total. The first element is "big[0][0]", and
the last is "big[7][7]". Another array named "large" is
also defined which is not square to illustrate that the
array need not be square. Both are filled up with data, one
representing a multiplication table and the other being
formed into an addition table.
To illustrate that individual elements can be modified
at will, one of the elements of "big" is assigned the value
from one of the elements of "large" after being multiplied
by 22. Next "big[2][2]" is assigned the arbitrary value of
5, and this value is used for the subscripts of the next
assignment statement. The third assignment statement is in
reality "big[5][5] = 177" because each of the subscripts
contain the value 5. This is only done to illustrate that
any valid expression can be used for a subscript. It must
only meet two conditions, it must be an integer (although a
"char" will work just as well), and it must be within the
range of the subscript it is being used for.
The entire matrix variable "big" is printed out in a
square form so you can check the values to see if they did
get set the way you expected them to.
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Chapter 7 - Strings and Arrays
PROGRAMMING EXERCISES
1. Write a program with three short strings, about 6
characters each, and use "strcpy" to copy "one", "two",
and "three" into them. Concatenate the three strings
into one string and print the result out 10 times.
2. Define two integer arrays, each 10 elements long,
called "array1" and "array2". Using a loop, put some
kind of nonsense data in each and add them term for
term into another 10 element array named "arrays".
Finally, print all results in a table with an index
number.
1 2 + 10 = 12
2 4 + 20 = 24
3 6 + 30 = 36 etc.
Hint; The print statement will be similar to;
printf("%4d %4d + %4d = %4d\n",index,array1[index],
array2[index],arrays[index]);
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