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I am trying to get a program to let a user enter a word or character, store it, and then print it until the user types it again, exiting the program. My code looks like this:
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
char input[40];
char check[40];
int i=0;
printf("Hello!\nPlease enter a word or character:\n");
gets(input); /* obsolete function: do not use!! */
printf("I will now repeat this until you type it back to me.\n");
while (check != input)
{
printf("%s\n", input);
gets(check); /* obsolete function: do not use!! */
}
printf("Good bye!");
return 0;
}
The problem is that I keep getting the printing of the input string, even when the input by the user (check) matches the original (input). Am I comparing the two incorrectly?
You can't (usefully) compare strings using != or ==, you need to use strcmp:
while (strcmp(check,input) != 0)
The reason for this is because != and == will only compare the base addresses of those strings. Not the contents of the strings themselves.
Ok a few things: gets is unsafe and should be replaced with fgets(input, sizeof(input), stdin) so that you don't get a buffer overflow.
Next, to compare strings, you must use strcmp, where a return value of 0 indicates that the two strings match. Using the equality operators (ie. !=) compares the address of the two strings, as opposed to the individual chars inside them.
And also note that, while in this example it won't cause a problem, fgets stores the newline character, '\n' in the buffers also; gets() does not. If you compared the user input from fgets() to a string literal such as "abc" it would never match (unless the buffer was too small so that the '\n' wouldn't fit in it).
Use strcmp.
This is in string.h library, and is very popular. strcmp return 0 if the strings are equal. See this for an better explanation of what strcmp returns.
Basically, you have to do:
while (strcmp(check,input) != 0)
or
while (!strcmp(check,input))
or
while (strcmp(check,input))
You can check this, a tutorial on strcmp.
You can't compare arrays directly like this
array1==array2
You should compare them char-by-char; for this you can use a function and return a boolean (True:1, False:0) value. Then you can use it in the test condition of the while loop.
Try this:
#include <stdio.h>
int checker(char input[],char check[]);
int main()
{
char input[40];
char check[40];
int i=0;
printf("Hello!\nPlease enter a word or character:\n");
scanf("%s",input);
printf("I will now repeat this until you type it back to me.\n");
scanf("%s",check);
while (!checker(input,check))
{
printf("%s\n", input);
scanf("%s",check);
}
printf("Good bye!");
return 0;
}
int checker(char input[],char check[])
{
int i,result=1;
for(i=0; input[i]!='\0' || check[i]!='\0'; i++) {
if(input[i] != check[i]) {
result=0;
break;
}
}
return result;
}
Welcome to the concept of the pointer. Generations of beginning programmers have found the concept elusive, but if you wish to grow into a competent programmer, you must eventually master this concept — and moreover, you are already asking the right question. That's good.
Is it clear to you what an address is? See this diagram:
---------- ----------
| 0x4000 | | 0x4004 |
| 1 | | 7 |
---------- ----------
In the diagram, the integer 1 is stored in memory at address 0x4000. Why at an address? Because memory is large and can store many integers, just as a city is large and can house many families. Each integer is stored at a memory location, as each family resides in a house. Each memory location is identified by an address, as each house is identified by an address.
The two boxes in the diagram represent two distinct memory locations. You can think of them as if they were houses. The integer 1 resides in the memory location at address 0x4000 (think, "4000 Elm St."). The integer 7 resides in the memory location at address 0x4004 (think, "4004 Elm St.").
You thought that your program was comparing the 1 to the 7, but it wasn't. It was comparing the 0x4000 to the 0x4004. So what happens when you have this situation?
---------- ----------
| 0x4000 | | 0x4004 |
| 1 | | 1 |
---------- ----------
The two integers are the same but the addresses differ. Your program compares the addresses.
Whenever you are trying to compare the strings, compare them with respect to each character. For this you can use built in string function called strcmp(input1,input2); and you should use the header file called #include<string.h>
Try this code:
#include<stdio.h>
#include<stdlib.h>
#include<string.h>
int main()
{
char s[]="STACKOVERFLOW";
char s1[200];
printf("Enter the string to be checked\n");//enter the input string
scanf("%s",s1);
if(strcmp(s,s1)==0)//compare both the strings
{
printf("Both the Strings match\n");
}
else
{
printf("Entered String does not match\n");
}
system("pause");
}
You need to use strcmp() and you need to #include <string.h>
The != and == operators only compare the base addresses of those strings. Not the contents of the strings
while (strcmp(check, input))
Example code:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
int main()
{
char input[40];
char check[40] = "end\n"; //dont forget to check for \n
while ( strcmp(check, input) ) //strcmp returns 0 if equal
{
printf("Please enter a name: \n");
fgets(input, sizeof(input), stdin);
printf("My name is: %s\n", input);
}
printf("Good bye!");
return 0;
}
Note1: gets() is unsafe. Use fgets() instead
Note2: When using fgets() you need to check for '\n' new line charecter too
You can:
Use strcmp() from string.h, which is the easier version
Or if you want to roll your own, you can use something like this:
int strcmp(char *s1, char *s2)
{
int i;
while(s1[i] != '\0' && s2[i] != '\0')
{
if(s1[i] != s2[i])
{
return 1;
}
i++;
}
return 0;
}
I'd use strcmp() in a way like this:
while(strcmp(check, input))
{
// code here
}
How do I properly compare strings?
char input[40];
char check[40];
strcpy(input, "Hello"); // input assigned somehow
strcpy(check, "Hello"); // check assigned somehow
// insufficient
while (check != input)
// good
while (strcmp(check, input) != 0)
// or
while (strcmp(check, input))
Let us dig deeper to see why check != input is not sufficient.
In C, string is a standard library specification.
A string is a contiguous sequence of characters terminated by and including the first null character.
C11 §7.1.1 1
input above is not a string. input is array 40 of char.
The contents of input can become a string.
In most cases, when an array is used in an expression, it is converted to the address of its 1st element.
The below converts check and input to their respective addresses of the first element, then those addresses are compared.
check != input // Compare addresses, not the contents of what addresses reference
To compare strings, we need to use those addresses and then look at the data they point to.
strcmp() does the job. §7.23.4.2
int strcmp(const char *s1, const char *s2);
The strcmp function compares the string pointed to by s1 to the string pointed to by s2.
The strcmp function returns an integer greater than, equal to, or less than zero,
accordingly as the string pointed to by s1 is greater than, equal to, or less than the string pointed to by s2.
Not only can code find if the strings are of the same data, but which one is greater/less when they differ.
The below is true when the string differ.
strcmp(check, input) != 0
For insight, see Creating my own strcmp() function
#include<stdio.h>
#include<string.h>
int main()
{
char s1[50],s2[50];
printf("Enter the character of strings: ");
gets(s1);
printf("\nEnter different character of string to repeat: \n");
while(strcmp(s1,s2))
{
printf("%s\n",s1);
gets(s2);
}
return 0;
}
This is very simple solution in which you will get your output as you want.
#include<iostream>
#include<string.h>
#include<stdio.h>
int main()
{
char left[4];
for(int i=0; i<4; i++)
{
left[i]='0';
}
char str[10];
gets(str);
strcat(left,str);
puts(left);
return 0;
}
for any input it should concatenate 0000 with that string, but on one pc it's showing a diamond sign between "0000" and the input string...!
You append a possible nine (or more, gets have no bounds checking) character string to a three character string (which contains four character and no string terminator). No string termination at all. So when you print using puts it will continue to print until it finds a string termination character, which may be anywhere in memory. This is, in short, a school-book example of buffer overflow, and buffer overflows usually leads to undefined behavior which is what you're seeing.
In C and C++ all C-style strings must be terminated. They are terminated by a special character: '\0' (or plain ASCII zero). You also need to provide enough space for destination string in your strcat call.
Proper, working program:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <errno.h>
int main(void)
{
/* Size is 4 + 10 + 1, the last +1 for the string terminator */
char left[15] = "0000";
/* The initialization above sets the four first characters to '0'
* and properly terminates it by adding the (invisible) '\0' terminator
* which is included in the literal string.
*/
/* Space for ten characters, plus terminator */
char str[11];
/* Read string from user, with bounds-checking.
* Also check that something was truly read, as `fgets` returns
* `NULL` on error or other failure to read.
*/
if (fgets(str, sizeof(str), stdin) == NULL)
{
/* There might be an error */
if (ferror(stdin))
printf("Error reading input: %s\n", strerror(errno));
return 1;
}
/* Unfortunately `fgets` may leave the newline in the input string
* so we have to remove it.
* This is done by changing the newline to the string terminator.
*
* First check that the newline really is there though. This is done
* by first making sure there is something in the string (using `strlen`)
* and then to check if the last character is a newline. The use of `-1`
* is because strings like arrays starts their indexing at zero.
*/
if (strlen(str) > 0 && str[strlen(str) - 1] == '\n')
str[strlen(str) - 1] = '\0';
/* Here we know that `left` is currently four characters, and that `str`
* is at most ten characters (not including zero terminaton). Since the
* total length allocated for `left` is 15, we know that there is enough
* space in `left` to have `str` added to it.
*/
strcat(left, str);
/* Print the string */
printf("%s\n", left);
return 0;
}
There are two problems in the code.
First, left is not nul-terminated, so strcat will end up looking beyond the end of the array for the appropriate place to append characters. Put a '\0' at the end of the array.
Second, left is not large enough to hold the result of the call to strcat. There has to be enough room for the resulting string, including the nul terminator. So the size of left should at least 4 + 9, to allow for the three characters (plus nul terminator) that left starts out with, and 9 characters coming from str (assuming that gets hasn't caused an overflow).
Each of these errors results in undefined behavior, which accounts for the different results on different platforms.
I do not know why you are bothering to include <iostream> as you aren't using any C++ features in your code. Your entire program would be much shorter if you had:
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
int main()
{
std::string line;
std::cin >> line;
std::cout << "You entered: " << line;
return 0;
}
Since std::string is going to be null-terminated, there is no reason to force it to be 4-null-terminated.
Problem #1 - not a legal string:
char left[4];
for(int i=0; i<4; i++)
{
left[i]='0';
}
String must end with a zero char, '\0' not '0'.
This causes what you describe.
Problem #2 - fgets. You use it on a small buffer. Very dangerous.
Problem #3 - strcat. Yet again trying to fill a super small buffer which should have already been full with an extra string.
This code looks an invitation to a buffer overflow attack.
In C what we call a string is a null terminated character array.All the functions in the string.h library are based on this null at the end of the character array.Your character array is not null terminated and thus is not a string , So you can not use the string library function strcat here.
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#include<stdio.h>
#include<stdlib.h>
char *syllable[26] = {"a","bub","cash","dud","e","fud","gug","hash","i","jay",
"kuck","lul","mum","nun","o","pub","quack","rug","sus",
"tut","u","vuv","wack","xux","yuck","zug"};
void Tutnese(char *word, char *newword);
char *letter;
void Tutnese(char *word, char *newword)
{
//clrscr();
for(*letter = 'A'; *letter <= 'Z'; *letter++)
{
letter=syllable;
printf("%c\n",&letter);
}
}
Tutnese is an English language game primarily used by children who use it to converse in
(perceived) privacy from adults (or vice versa)
I am trying to let A="A" B="bub" c="cash" and so on.
I am expecting a result like this.
“computer.” becomes “cashomumpubututerug.”
- “Stony” become “Sustutonunyuck”
but i just start learning c, and i have no idea how to use pointer. I've been keep getting error like assignment makes integer from pointer without a cast
char *letter;
This statement declares a variable named letter, same way as any other statement like char ch; will do.
Now, what's the difference then!!
Well the difference (and similarity) is:
char ch; declares a char variable, i.e. a memory block of size 1 byte is allocated (statically), which you can refer to using ch.
char *letter; on the other hand declares a char pointer i.e. a memory size of 2 or 4 or 8 bytes (depending on compiler) will be allocated (again statically) to store address of a char variable.
Now when you use *letter as lvalue (on Left Hand Side) as you do in for loop, this means you are trying to write to the memory address stored in letter. In your case you never stored any address in letter, to do so you can use letter = &ch; where ch is some char variable.
That was all the lecture!!
Now my suggestion for your program:
You don't need to use letter pointer for the loop, a simple char i variable will be fine.
To re-form the string as you plan to, you can simply use the characters of the original string as indices to form new string. Declare a empty string of some large length, then keep concatenating the syllable[orig_string[i] - 'A'], inside a for loop till the end of orig_string. Assumption is orig_string contains all uppercase alphabets
Finally, Correct your printf syntax.
Do read about pointers in C from a good source, as they will never leave you, and will give you all sorts of nightmare.
Code
#include <ctype.h>
#include <stddef.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
char *syllable[26] = {"a","bub","cash","dud","e","fud","gug","hash","i","jay",
"kuck","lul","mum","nun","o","pub","quack","rug","sus",
"tut","u","vuv","wack","xux","yuck","zug"};
void Tutnese(char *word, char *newword, size_t new_size);
void Tutnese(char *word, char *newword, size_t new_size)
{
char *end = newword + new_size;
char c;
while ((c = *word++) != '\0')
{
if (!isalpha(c))
*newword++ = c;
else
{
char *tut = syllable[tolower(c) - 'a'];
ptrdiff_t len = strlen(tut);
if (end - newword <= len)
break;
memcpy(newword, tut, len + 1);
newword += len;
}
}
*newword = '\0';
}
int main(void)
{
char i_data[1024];
char o_data[4096];
while (fgets(i_data, sizeof(i_data), stdin) != 0)
{
Tutnese(i_data, o_data, sizeof(o_data));
printf("I: %sO: %s", i_data, o_data);
}
return(0);
}
Output
I: computer
O: cashomumpubututerug
I: how do you tell mum that she cannot understand us?
O: hashowack dudo yuckou tutelullul mumumum tuthashatut sushashe cashanunnunotut ununduderugsustutanundud usus?
I: The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.
O: tuthashe quackuicashkuck bubrugowacknun fudoxux jayumumpubedud ovuverug tuthashe lulazugyuck dudogug.
Lets forget about pointers and break down the problem.
You're given a word word and you want to create newword based on your mapping.
First, you need to figure out how big newword is.
To do that, iterate through the characters in word and add the string lengths of the mappings (call it N)
Once you've done that, you know you can allocate N+1 bytes (strings are null terminated in C) for newword (via malloc).
Then, you iterate through the characters again and just append to newword
Let me give you a few hints:
To iterate through a string (lets call it word), the C code would look like:
unsigned int wordlen = strlen(word);
for(unsigned int index = 0; index < wordlen; index++)
printf("Character at %u is %c", index, word[index]);
Your for loop is quite messed up. Do look up a few tutorials on pointers and string manipulation in C.
Say I have a text file like this:
User: John
Device: 12345
Date: 12/12/12
EDIT:
I have my code to successfully search for a word, and display the info after that word. However when I try to edit the code to search for 2 or 3 words and display the info after them instead of just 1 word, I cannot get it to work. I have tried adding codes into the same while loop, and creating a new while loop for the other word, but both doesn't work. There must be something I am doing wrong/not doing.
Please advice, thanks!
Here is my code:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main() {
char file[100];
char c[100];
printf ("Enter file name and directory:");
scanf ("%s",file);
FILE * fs = fopen (file, "r") ;
if ( fs == NULL )
{
puts ( "Cannot open source file" ) ;
exit( 1 ) ;
}
FILE * ft = fopen ( "book5.txt", "w" ) ;
if ( ft == NULL )
{
puts ( "Cannot open target file" ) ;
exit( 1 ) ;
}
while(!feof(fs)) {
char *Data;
char *Device;
char const * rc = fgets(c, 99, fs);
if(rc==NULL) { break; }
if((Data = strstr(rc, "Date:"))!= NULL)
printf(Data+5);
if((Data = strstr(rc, "Device:"))!=NULL)
printf(Device+6);
}
fclose ( fs ) ;
fclose ( ft ) ;
return 0;
}
Ok, hope I can clear it this time. Sorry if I get confusing sometimes but my english is not the best.
I'll explain the implementation inside comments:
#define BUFFSIZE 1024
int main()....
char buff[BUFFSIZE];
char delims[] = " "; /*Where your strtok will split the string*/
char *result = NULL;
char *device; /*To save your device - in your example: 12345*/
char *date; /*To save the date*/
int stop = 0;
fp = fopen("yourFile", "r");
while( fgets(buff, BUFFSIZE,fp) != NULL ) /*This returns null when the file is over*/
{
result = strtok( buff, delims ); /*You just need to do reference to buff here, after this, strtok uses delims to know where to do the next token*/
while(result != NULL){ /*Strtok returns null when finishes reading the given string*/
if(strcmp(result,"Device")==0){ /*strcmp returns 0 if the strings are equal*/
result = strtok(NULL, delims); /*this one gets the 12345*/
device = (char*)malloc((strlen(result)+1)*sizeof(char)); /*Alocate the right amount of memory for the variable device*/
strcpy(device, result); /*Now, device is "12345"*/
}
/*Here you do the same but for the string 'Date'*/
if(strcmp(result,"Date")==0){ /*strcmp returns 0 if the strings are equal*/
result = strtok(NULL, delims); /*this one gets the 12345*/
date = (char*)malloc((strlen(result)+1)*sizeof(char)); /*Alocate the right amount of memory for the variable device*/
strcpy(date, result); /*Now, device is "12/12/12"*/
}
/*And you can repeat the if statement for every string you're looking for*/
result = strtok(NULL,delims); /*Get the next token*/
}
}
/*No strtok necessary here */
...
Hope this helps.
fgetc returns an integer value, which is character, promoted to int.
I suppose you meant fgets which reads a whole line, but you need to reserve memory for it, for example:
#define BUF 100
...
char c[BUF];
fgets(c, BUF, fs);
Some helpful links.
There are a couple of problems in your code: basically it never compiled.
Here is a version with small cleanups - which at least compiles:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main() {
char file[100];
char c[100];
printf ("Enter file name and directory:");
scanf ("%s",file);
FILE * fs = fopen (file, "r") ;
if ( fs == NULL ) {
puts( "Cannot open source file" ) ;
exit(1 ) ;
}
while(!feof(fs)) {
char *Data;
char const * rc = fgets(c, 99, fs);
if(rc==NULL) { break; }
if((Data = strstr(rc, "Device"))!= NULL)
printf("%s", Data);
}
fclose ( fs ) ;
return 0;
}
Problems I found:
Missing include for exit()
Missing parameter for exit()
Missing while loop to run through the whole input file.
The output file was never used.
Missing return value of 'main'
Fancy Data[5]
Changed fgetc() to fgets()
I only did minimal edits - it's not perfect at all....
IMHO I would go for C++: many things are much simpler there.
If printf() isn't a hard/fast rule, and the input requirements are really this simple, I'd prefer a state-machine and a constant-memory input:
int c, x = 0; // c is character, x is state
while(EOF!=(c=getchar())){ // scanner entry point
if(c == '\n') x=0; // newline resets scanner
else if(x == -1) continue; // -1 is invalid state
else if (x < 7 && c=="Device:"[x])x++; // advance state
else if (x == 7 && isspace(c)) continue; // skip leading/trailing whitespace
else if (x == 7) putchar(c); // successful terminator (exits at \n)
else x = -1; // otherwise move to invalid state
}
I would do that with two loops: one to get a line from the file and other to make tokens from the line read.
something like:
#define BUFFSIZE 1024
int main()....
char buff[BUFFSIZE];
char delims[] = " ";
char *result = NULL;
int stop = 0;
fp = fopen("yourFile", "r");
while( fgets(buff, BUFFSIZE,fp) != NULL ) /*This returns null when the file is over*/
{
result = strtok( buff, delims ); /*You just need to do reference to buff here, after this, strtok uses delims to know where to do the next token*/
while(result != NULL){ /*Strtok returns null when finishes reading the given string*/
if(strcmp(result,"Device")==0){ /*strcmp returns 0 if the strings are equal*/
stop = 1; /*Update the flag*/
break; /*Is now possible to break the loop*/
}
result = strtok(NULL,delims); /*Get the next token*/
}
if(stop == 1) break; /*This uses the inside flag to stop the outer loop*/
}
result = strtok(NULL, delims); /*Result, now, has the string you want: 12345 */
...
this code is not very accurate and I didn't tested it, but thats how I would try to do it.
Hope this helps.
My suggestion is to use fread to read all the file.You could read it character by character, but IMHO (a personal taste here) it's simpler to get a string containing all the characters and then manipulating it.
This is the function prototype:
size_t fread ( void * ptr, size_t size, size_t count, FILE * stream );
It returns the number of elements read.
For example:
char buffer[100];
size_t n= fread(buffer, 1,100, fs);
Then you can manipulate the string and divide it in tokens.
EDIT
There is a nice reference with also an example of how dividing a string into tokens here:
http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/cstring/strtok/
c and Data are char-pointers, pointers to (the start of a list of) character value(s).
fgetc's prototype is int fgetc ( FILE * stream ); meaning that it returns (one) integer value (an integer is convertible to a single char value).
If fgetc's prototype would've been int * fgetc ( FILE * stream ); the warning wouldn't have appeared.
#Dave Wang
My answer was too big to be a comment. So here it goes:
You're welcome. Glad to help.
If you make a new loop, the fgets won't work because you are already 'down' in the text file. Imagine something like a pointer to the file, every time you 'fget it' from a file pointer, you advance that pointer. You have functions to reload the file or push that pointer up, but it is not efficient, you've already passed by the information you want, there must be a way to know when.
If you're using my implementation, that is done by using another string compare inside the loop:
if(strcmp(result,"date") == 0)
If you enter this if, you know that the next value in result token with strtok is the actual date.
Since you have now two conditions to be tested, you can't break the outer loop before having both of them. This can be accomplished by two ways:
1-Instead of a flag, use a counter that is incremented everytime you want an information. If that counter has the same number of information you want, you can break the outer loop.
2-Don't break the outer loop at all! :)
But in both, since there are 2 conditions, make sure you treat them inside the ifs so you know that you dealing with the right information.
Hope this helps. Anything, just ask.
Basically I have a buffer in which i am looking for various flags to read certain fields from a binary file format. I have file read into a buffer but as i started to write code to search the buffer for the flags i immediately hit a wall. I am a C++ noob, but here is what i have:
void FileReader::parseBuffer(char * buffer, int length)
{
//start by looking for a vrsn
//Header seek around for a vrns followed by 32 bit size descriptor
//read 32 bits at a time
int cursor = 0;
char vrsn[4] = {'v','r','s','n'};
cursor = this->searchForMarker(cursor, length, vrsn, buffer);
}
int FileReader::searchForMarker(int startPos, int eof, char marker[], char * buffer)
{
int cursor = startPos;
while(cursor < eof) {
//read ahead 4 bytes from the cursor into a tmpbuffer
char tmpbuffer[4] = {buffer[cursor], buffer[cursor+1], buffer[cursor+2], buffer[cursor+3]};
if (strcmp(marker, tmpbuffer)) {
cout << "Found: " << tmpbuffer;
return cursor;
}
else {
cout << "Didn't Find Value: " << marker << " != " << tmpbuffer;
}
cursor = cursor + 4;
}
}
my header looks like this:
#ifndef __FILEREADER_H_INCLUDED__
#define __FILEREADER_H_INCLUDED__
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <sys/stat.h>
class FileReader {
public:
FileReader();
~FileReader();
int open(char *);
int getcode();
private:
void parseBuffer(char *, int);
int searchForMarker(int, int, char[], char *);
char *buffer;
};
#endif
I would expect to get back a match for vrsn with strcmp but my result looks like this
Didn't Find Value: vrsn != vrsn
Found:
It looks like it finds it on the second pass after its passed the char array i am looking for.
Relevant hexcode
Your problem is two-fold:
strcmp returns "0" on success, not on failure. Read the documentation.
strcmp expects null-terminated strings. You say that you have chosen non-terminated char arrays because that's what your DB library uses. Well, fine. But still, you are violating the requirements of strcmp. Use strncmp instead (which takes a length argument) or, preferably, actually write C++ and start using std::vector<char> and friends.
Shouldn't that be something like int FileReader::searchForMarker(...) { .... }?
For the second query, I guess the strcmp works when it has two null terminated strings as its arguments. For example str1[]="AAA"; and str2[]="AAA"; then strcmp() would be used as
if(strcmp(str1,str2)==0) which will return 0 to indicate that they are equal. In your case, the tmpbuffer that you have created is not a null terminated string unless you add \0 in the end.So you might want to add \0 in the end of your tmpbuffer to create a string of 'v' 'r' 'n' 's'.
char vrsn[4] = {'v','r','s','n'};
Contains only the 4 characters specified. There is no room for a null character at the end.
char tmpbuffer[4] = {buffer[cursor], buffer[cursor+1], buffer[cursor+2], buffer[cursor+3]};
Contains only the 4 characters from buffer. There is no room for a null character at the end.
Eventually you call:
if (strcmp(marker, tmpbuffer)) {
The strcmp() function expects each of its parameters to end with a null character ('\0'). It wants to work with strings, which are null terminated.
Since your data is not null terminated, you probably want to use memcmp() instead of strcmp().
Also, strcmp() returns zero when its arguments are equal, so the condition in the if statement is inverted. (Zero is false, everything else is true.) The memcmp() function will also return zero when its arguments are equal.