I’ve seen some oddball constructions in C. You may have as well, especially if you enjoy reading obfuscated C. Yet, the weirdness I just witnessed came from an online C course I was browsing. I’d never seen it before.
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\nWhen you declare a string, you assign it to an array like this:<\/p>\n
Array But what about the construction in this code:<\/p>\n Array Check the listing again: You see that are no commas between the strings. The array is a char<\/em> array, not an array of strings (pointers). It’s just that the long string is split between several lines. The compiler assembles each string, one after the other, with only a single null character at the end.<\/p>\n Here is the output:<\/p>\n What happens if you scrunch the entire expression onto one line?<\/p>\n The thing still compiles. It runs. The output is the same. After all, what’s missing between the above statement and the way it appears in the full code earlier is just whitespace. So does this mean a single string can be composed of multiple string chunks?<\/p>\n Yes.<\/p>\n According to the C standard:<\/p>\n Adjacent string literal tokens are concatenated.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This rule doesn’t mean you can concatenate strings as is done in other languages, such as:<\/p>\n The rule does, however, mean that you can use multiple string literals to declare a single string. I don’t know what the advantage is for doing so, other than it’s possible to write a multi-line string without messing up anything. For example:<\/p>\n The type of formatting shown above might be easier to type than trying to cram everything into a single, long string literal. Just remember not<\/em> to separate the string literals with commas, and that the entire construction terminates with the required semicolon. It’s weird, yes, but it works.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s possible to have a string that contains multiple strings. Weird, right? Keep reading. Continue reading char string[] = \"Hello!\\n\";<\/code><\/p>\nstring[]<\/code> contains the string literal, the characters enclosed in double quotes, complete with a terminating null character added automatically by the compiler. This statement represents one way to declare a string. It’s common.<\/p>\n2021_10_23-Lesson.c<\/a><\/h3>\n
\r\n#include <stdio.h>\r\n\r\nint main()\r\n{\r\n char long_string[] = \r\n \"Hello!\\n\"\r\n \"This is a long string\\n\"\r\n \"How will it format?\\n\";\r\n\r\n printf(\"%s\",long_string);\r\n\r\n return(0);\r\n}<\/pre>\nlong_string[]<\/code> contains a single string, though the string itself is defined as three separate string literals, each appearing on a line by itself, each enclosed in double quotes. This type of declaration is valid in C. I’ve never seen it before.<\/p>\nHello!
\nThis is a long string
\nHow will it format?<\/code><\/p>\n\r\nchar long_string[] = \"Hello!\\n\" \"This is a long string\\n\" \"How will it format?\\n\";<\/pre>\n
string1 = string_a + string_b<\/code><\/p>\n\r\nsonnet18[] = \r\n \"Shall I compare thee to a summer\u2019s day?\\n\"\r\n \"Thou art more lovely and more temperate:\\n\"\r\n \"Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,\\n\"\r\n \"And summer\u2019s lease hath all too short a date;\\n\";<\/pre>\n