Reading string from input with space character?

Hieu Nguyen picture Hieu Nguyen · Jun 8, 2011 · Viewed 533.2k times · Source

I'm using Ubuntu and I'm also using Geany and CodeBlock as my IDE. What I'm trying to do is reading a string (like "Barack Obama") and put it in a variable:

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void)
{
    char name[100];

    printf("Enter your name: ");
    scanf("%s", name);
    printf("Your Name is: %s", name);

    return 0;
}

Output:

Enter your name: Barack Obama
Your Name is: Barack

How can I make the program read the whole name?

Answer

phoxis picture phoxis · Jun 8, 2011

Use:

fgets (name, 100, stdin);

100 is the max length of the buffer. You should adjust it as per your need.

Use:

scanf ("%[^\n]%*c", name);

The [] is the scanset character. [^\n] tells that while the input is not a newline ('\n') take input. Then with the %*c it reads the newline character from the input buffer (which is not read), and the * indicates that this read in input is discarded (assignment suppression), as you do not need it, and this newline in the buffer does not create any problem for next inputs that you might take.

Read here about the scanset and the assignment suppression operators.

Note you can also use gets but ....

Never use gets(). Because it is impossible to tell without knowing the data in advance how many characters gets() will read, and because gets() will continue to store characters past the end of the buffer, it is extremely dangerous to use. It has been used to break computer security. Use fgets() instead.