Solution for Exercise 7-18

ex0718

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
    char firstname[15];
    char lastname[15];

    printf("Type your first name: ");
    fgets(firstname,15,stdin);
    printf("Type your last name: ");
    fgets(lastname,15,stdin);
    printf("Pleased to meet you, %s %s.\n",firstname,lastname);
    return(0);
}

Output

Type your first name: Danny
Type your last name: Gookin
Please to meet you, Danny
Gookin
.

Notes

* Bonus points if you used a constant to set the buffer size as well as the second argument for the fgets() functions.

* This exercise demonstrates a flaw with using fgets() as a general-purpose text input function: The Enter key press (the newline) is read along with other characters, stored as part of the string, and output all ugly as shown above.

* It's also possible to code the solution for this Exercise to read both strings at once:

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
    char name[30];

    printf("Type your first and last name: ");
    fgets(name,30,stdin);
    printf("Pleased to meet you, %s.\n",name);
    return(0);
}

* The output from the above code still retains the extra Enter character typed at the end of the string:

Type your first and last name: Danny Gookin
Pleased to meet you, Danny Gookin
.

* Later examples in the book demonstrate how to strip out the \n in a string read by fgets().

Exercise ex0801 →