c++: print a string with specified length - c++

In C++, using printf-s I want to write a char array (etc char asd[50]) to console with a specified 50 space
(similar like "%.2d" method at decimals, if the string shorter fill it with spaces....)
Tried %50s and %.50s methods, both of them wronged my charachters....
I can (hardly) accept answers, but then calculat with the fact, i use a charachter array, so its not wrok to cout<

Try this if you find it useful,
#include <iomanip>
void prints(const char * s)
{
cout << std::setfill('0') << std::setw(50) << s;
}

A used a for loop with printfs (using %c) to write it, and after the \0 charachter it write spaces , so problem solved
for(int j=0;j<50;j++)
{
printf("%c",asd[j]);
}

Related

Returning and Printing Strings in C++

I am trying to get a file path from the user in the getPath() function and return the path as a string. I am having trouble because the compiler says i need to use const char's and i dont know how to do that. How would I use const chars and what even are they. Also how do I print them to the console like in the main function.
#include <iostream>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
char getPath() {
char path[64];
std::cout << "Input File Name For Debugging:";
gets(path);
std::cout << "Debugging: ";
puts(path);
return path[64];
}
int main(){
char path[64];
int pathlen = strlen(reinterpret_cast<const char *>(path));
//suppost to print the char array
for(int i; i < pathlen; i++){
std::cout << path[i];
}
return 0;
}
Lot's of misunderstandings
1) char is not a string, it's a character
2) An array of chars (e.g. char [64]) is not a string, its an array. It can hold a string but that's a subtly different idea
3) You don't use [64] when you mean the whole array, so return path[64]; is not the correct way to return a string.
4) Don't mix C++ I/O (std::cin, std::cout) with C I/O (puts, gets), it doesn't work reliably, Stick with C++ I/O so
std::cout << "Debugging: " << path << '\n';
not
std::cout << "Debugging: ";
puts(path);
5) You never call your getPath function so of course it doesn't execute
6) You don't initialise your loop variable i in your final loop so it has no predictable value. You should initialise i to 0
for(int i; i < pathlen; i++){
std::cout << path[i];
should be
for(int i = 0; i < pathlen; i++){
std::cout << path[i];
As you can see lots and lots of mistakes for a very short program. I'm going to show two different correct ways to write this program.
So there are two ways to represent a string in C++, there's the C++ way and there's the way that C++ inherits from C. The code you are writing above is trying to do things the C way, so I'll show that first, but actually the C++ way is much much easier. I'll show that second, but it's the way you should do things.
The first way is to use an array of characters to hold the string. But arrays have serious problems in C++. In particular it's not possible to return an array from a function, so your code above was never going to work, even if you'd fixed all the smaller problems. The way you get C++ to 'return' an array is a bit curious and I'm not going to explain it properly (you need to read a good C++ book). What you do is declare the array in the calling function and pass the array as a parameter. Here's your program written using this technique (and fixed of all the other problems).
#include <iostream>
void getPath(char path[], int n) {
std::cout << "Input File Name For Debugging:";
std::cin.getline(path, n);
std::cout << "Debugging: " << path << '\n';
}
int main(){
char path[64];
getPath(path, 64);
std::cout << path << '\n';
return 0;
}
Note I'm using getline to read the string, which is one C++ way to read a string. getline requires that you pass the size of the array it's going to read into, so I've passed that to getPath as well as the array itself.
Now for the easy way. C++ has it's own string type called std::string. You don't need to use tricky arrays at all. And the C++ string type can be returned from a function in the normal way. This makes for much more natural code. To use the C++ string type all you need to do is #include <string>. Here's your program rewritten to use the C++ string type
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
std::string getPath() {
std::cout << "Input File Name For Debugging:";
std::string path;
std::getline(std::cin, path);
std::cout << "Debugging: " << path << '\n';
return path;
}
int main(){
std::string path;
path = getPath();
std::cout << path << '\n';
return 0;
}
Notice this second program is closer to your original code, getPath has a return type, only it's std::string not char, and it has a return statement to return the path. This is the way you should be writing this code, the C++ string type will make writing string code much easier for you.

How to explain weird characters at the end of my char array, and the wrong result of using strlen function in my code

I am a complete beginner so the code may seem to be easy, but I cannot find a solution why it returns such values as:
input: kkkk
output:
14
kkkkřřřř╩┬ëŢ
Suprisingly the code works fine with online compilators, but not with the Visual Studio.
#include<iostream>
#include<string.h>
int main()
{
char word[20];
std::cin >> word;
int length = strlen(word);
int p = length - 1, i = 0;
char *var=new char [length];
while (i < length&&p>=0)
{
var[i]= word[p];
p--;
i++;
}
std::cout <<strlen(var)<<endl<< var;
if (!strcmp(var, word)) std::cout << "\nThe word is a palindrome";
return 0;
}
I can not use strings because my University doesn't allow to do so. I also know there are many different ways to attend to this problem but I just really want know what I have done wrong in this one :/
Your "copy routine" copies each character, but it does not copy the string termination character. Note that C-style strings as used in functions like strlen or strcmp need to be 0-terminated, and even cout <<, when getting a parameter of type char*, treats this as a C-style string: It will read until finding the terminating '\0', and if you do not write one, it will read beyond the boundaries you think it should do.
If your write
...
}
var[length] = '\0';
std::cout <<strlen(var)<<endl;
...
it should work.

How to get length of a string using strlen function

I have following code that gets and prints a string.
#include<iostream>
#include<conio.h>
#include<string>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
string str;
cout << "Enter a string: ";
getline(cin, str);
cout << str;
getch();
return 0;
}
But how to count the number of characters in this string using strlen() function?
For C++ strings, there's no reason to use strlen. Just use string::length:
std::cout << str.length() << std::endl;
You should strongly prefer this to strlen(str.c_str()) for the following reasons:
Clarity: The length() (or size()) member functions unambiguously give back the length of the string. While it's possible to figure out what strlen(str.c_str()) does, it forces the reader to pause for a bit.
Efficiency: length() and size() run in time O(1), while strlen(str.c_str()) will take Θ(n) time to find the end of the string.
Style: It's good to prefer the C++ versions of functions to the C versions unless there's a specific reason to do so otherwise. This is why, for example, it's usually considered better to use std::sort over qsort or std::lower_bound over bsearch, unless some other factors come into play that would affect performance.
The only reason I could think of where strlen would be useful is if you had a C++-style string that had embedded null characters and you wanted to determine how many characters appeared before the first of them. (That's one way in which strlen differs from string::length; the former stops at a null terminator, and the latter counts all the characters in the string). But if that's the case, just use string::find:
size_t index = str.find(0);
if (index == str::npos) index = str.length();
std::cout << index << std::endl;
Function strlen shows the number of character before \0 and using it for std::string may report wrong length.
strlen(str.c_str()); // It may return wrong length.
In C++, a string can contain \0 within the characters but C-style-zero-terminated strings can not but at the end. If the std::string has a \0 before the last character then strlen reports a length less than the actual length.
Try to use .length() or .size(), I prefer second one since another standard containers have it.
str.size()
Use std::string::size or std::string::length (both are the same).
As you insist to use strlen, you can:
int size = strlen( str.c_str() );
note the usage of std::string::c_str, which returns const char*.
BUT strlen counts untill it hit \0 char and std::string can store such chars. In other words, strlen could sometimes lie for the size.
If you really, really want to use strlen(), then
cout << strlen(str.c_str()) << endl;
else the use of .length() is more in keeping with C++.
Manually:
int strlen(string s)
{
int len = 0;
while (s[len])
len++;
return len;
}
#include<iostream>
#include<conio.h>
#include<string.h>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
char str[80];
int i;
cout<<"\n enter string:";
cin.getline(str,80);
int n=strlen(str);
cout<<"\n lenght is:"<<n;
getch();
return 0;
}
This is the program if you want to use strlen .
Hope this helps!
Simply use
int len=str.length();

C++, Text to ASCII while-loop error

I've come this far without asking for help, but I've got a problem that I can't seem to fix. I like cryptology, so now that I am learning C++, I want to make programs to encrypt and decrypt strings. I read that the best way is to convert the text to ASCII and go from there, so here is a simple program I made in C++ to try and convert a char variable to ASCII:
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <math.h>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
char strString[1000];
cout<<"Enter you message:"<<endl;
cin>>strString[1000];
string strEncrypt;
int a = 0;
while (strString != '\0')
{
int b = (int)strString[a];
strEncrypt.at(a) = b; //This is where I'm getting an error.
a++;
}
cout<<"Encrypted message:"<<endl;
cout<<strEncrypt<<endl;
}
So, I've tried all 3 things I know to do to troubleshoot (Google, check for missing simicolons, and make sure I'm doing == not =, but this is just something I don't know how to do, not something I'm forgetting (I hope). So, any help would great!
You don't have to change the characters to ASCII they already are. Chars are basically the same as integers in memory.
Now to your question; . If you want to set a character in a string you can do that like this
string[index] = b;
Another thing to be careful for in your code. You are using cin to read the string from the user. This will not let you read messages that have spaces in them and will only read the first word. For example, if the user enters "Love Crypto" cin will only read "Love" and "Crypto" will be ignored. To get the entire line, use getline instead.
As for looping over characters in a string, it's better to do it as follows:
for(int i = 0; i < strString.length(); i++)
{
strString[i] = bla;
}
Again, you're code isn't actually doing anything. It is only reading a letter and then storing a "letter" in another string.
string::at() throws exception if the index passed to at() is out of range. So, if you are getting runtime error then it's expected. Because, your string strEncrypt is initialized to "" and thus the size is 0.
You may try
strEncrypt.reserve(strlen(strString));
Easiest way to actually make the code you have work is change this line strEncrypt.at(a) = b; to this strEncrypt += b; Which will add the characters to the empty string strEncrypt.
Your code doesn't make much sense though as char types are already ascii. You'll have to explain more about what kind of encrypting you are trying to do and maybe we can point you in the right direction.
EDIT: After thinking about what you're trying to do a bit more based on the code you have it seems like you want to print the numeric ascii value of characters. You can do that with just a cast like this:
string input;
cout << "Enter you message:" << endl;
// handle spaces in the message
getline(cin, input);
cout << "String chars as ascii values:" << endl;
cout << "Char: " << "ASCII Code:" << endl;
for (int i = 0; i < input.length(); ++i)
{
// casting the char to an int with (int) will print the ascii code
cout << input[i] << " " << (int)input[i] << endl;
}
On top of the fact that your input is already in ASCII, keep in mind that doing cin >> strString[1000] doesn't limit the input captured to the length of your buffer unless you specifically specify the number of characters to capture for the stream object using setw() or setting it's ios_base::width data member. So your method right now risks buffer overflows.
Secondly, the form of cin >> that you're using will not capture the entire line of input. Instead it will stop at the first white-space or any other delimiting character (or end-of-file if that is reached first). In your case, if you are entering a line like "Hello World", then the syntax you're using will only capture "Hello" and drop "World".
A much better idea would be to use the getline() function with a std::string object if you are wanting to capture a line of input to a string and remove the delimiting newline character without risking buffer overflows ... for instance:
string strString;
getline(cin, strString);
Apart from advises given, when receiving this kind of run-time errors use Cppcheck utility.
It will give you the answer: "Message: Array 'strString[1000]' index 1000 out of bounds".

How to get the size of the used space in an array? (NOT sizeof); c++

#include<iostream>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
char arr[200];
while(1) {
cin >> arr;
int i = sizeof(arr);
cout << "The arr input is "<< arr
<< " and the size of the array is "<< i << endl;
}
return 0;
}
For the input of 34,
This code outputs :The arr input is 34 and the size of the array is 200
while I want it to get the size of the used space of the array . So for The last input i want it to output :The arr input is 34 and the size of the array is 2
Can someone tell me how?
Maybe you want strlen(arr) here. It must be null terminated, otherwise the cout << arr would not have worked.
You would need to #include <cstring>
There's no automatic way to do what you want in the general case - you'll need to keep track somehow, either with your own counter, or by seeding the array with an 'invalid' value (that you define) and search for to find the end of the used elements (that's what the '\0' terminator character in a C-style string is).
In the example code you posted, the array should receive a null terminated C-style string, you can use that knowledge to count the number of valid elements.
If you're using C++ or some other library that has some more advanced data structures, you may be able to use one that keeps track of this kind of thing for you (like std::vector<>).
the size of the used space of the array
There is no such thing. If you have an array of 200 chars, then you have 200 chars. Arrays have no concept of "used" and "unused" space. It only works with C-strings because of the convention that those are terminated by a 0 character. But then again, the array itself cannot know if it is holding a C-string.
in a less involved manner, you can just count through each character till you hit a null with just a while loop. It will do the exact same thing strlen() does. Also, in practice, you should do type checking with cin, but i'll assume this was just a test.
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
char arr[200];
int i;
while(1) {
cin >> arr;
i=0;
while (arr[i] != '\0' && i<sizeof(arr))
i++;
cout << "The arr input is "<< arr
<< " and the size of the array is "<< i << endl;
}
return 0;
}
Just for completeness, here is a much more C++ like solution that is using std::string instead of a raw char array.
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
int
main()
{
while (std::cin.good()) {
std::string s;
if (std::cin >> s) {
std::cout
<< "The input is " << s
<< " and the size is " << s.length()
<< std::endl;
}
}
return 0;
}
It doesn't use an array, but it is the preferable solution for this kind of problem. In general, you should try to replace raw arrays with std::string and std::vector as appropriate, raw pointers with shared_ptr (scoped_ptr, or shared_array, whatever is most appropriate), and snprintf with std::stringstream. This is the first step to simply writing better C++. You will thank yourself in the future. I wish that I had followed this advice a few years ago.
Try it
template < typename T, unsigned N >
unsigned sizeOfArray( T const (&array)[ N ] )
{
return N;
}