C Strings

In this lesson, you will learn about strings in C, their usage, and examples to better understand the topic.

What are strings in C?

The string data type is a sequence of characters that can contain letters or any alphabets or numbers. During declaration strings are enclosed within double or single quotes; however, they are not treated in the same manner while printing. To clarify this explanation, let’s see the example below.

char s[] = "Welcome to Learnmodo";

char s[] = "Learmodo.com";

char s[200] = "Learmodo.com";

char s[] = { 'l', 'e', 'a', 'r', 'n', 'm', 'o', 'd', 'o', '
char s[] = "Welcome to Learnmodo";
char s[] = "Learmodo.com";
char s[200] = "Learmodo.com";
char s[] = { 'l', 'e', 'a', 'r', 'n', 'm', 'o', 'd', 'o', '\0' };

' };

 Note
The string data type in C is different than in other languages; you must use the char type to create a string and terminate by null character\0.

Example of String in C using scanf Function
//Example of program reads the input from user
#include <stdio.h>
int main ()
{
  char sub[50];			//declare the sub array of size 50
  printf ("Please enter the subject name: ");
  scanf ("%s", sub);		// takes the string input from user
  printf ("Subject you selected is %s.", sub);	// display the subject name
  return 0;
}
Output
Please enter the subject name: Programming
Subject you selected is Programming.
Example of String in C using fgets() function
Below program reads the user input using fgets() function in one line and uses the puts() function to display it.
//Example of program reads the input from user in one line
#include <stdio.h>
int main () 
{
  
char sub[50]; //declare the sub array of size 50
  printf ("Please enter the subject name: ");
  
fgets (sub, sizeof (sub), stdin);
  
puts (sub); // display the subject
  return 0;

}

Output
Please enter the subject name: Programming
Programming
In the next lesson, you will learn about built-in string functions in C.