C program to print the name using array

C program to print the name using array:

In this c program, we will learn how to print the name of a user using an array. I will show you different ways to print the content of an array.

You will learn:

• How to take a name as input from the user.
• How to read and keep the name in an array.
• How to print the array contents, i.e. the name entered by the user.

I will also show you how to read name with blank spaces as well.

Example 1: Assign the string directly to an array:

We can directly assign a string to an array directly as like below:

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
    char arr[40] = "Albert";
    printf("Name: %s\n", arr);
    return 0;
}

If you run this program, it will print:

Name: Albert

We have created a character array arr and assign the string Albert to it. By using the %s format specifier, we are printing the content of the array.

It will work with strings with blank spaces as well. For example:

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
    char arr[40] = "Albert Einstein";
    printf("Name: %s\n", arr);
    return 0;
}

It will print:

Name: Albert Einstein

Example 2: Print the array content by using a loop:

We can use a for loop or while loop to iterate over the array characters one by one and print these characters on the console.

For example:

By using for loop:

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
    char arr[40] = "Albert Einstein";
    printf("Name: ");

    int i = 0;

    for (i = 0; arr[i] != '\0'; i++)
    {
        printf("%c", arr[i]);
    }
    return 0;
}

Here,

• We are using a for loop to print the content of the string.
• The loop starts from i = 0 and it stops if the character in arr for a specific value of i become \0.
• Inside the loop, we are printing the current iterating character.

If you run this program, it will print the same output.

Name: Albert Einstein

By using while loop:

The same program can be written by using a while loop as well.

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
    char arr[40] = "Albert Einstein";
    printf("Name: ");

    int i = 0;

    while (arr[i] != '\0')
    {
        printf("%c", arr[i]);
        i++;
    }
    return 0;
}

It is working in a similar way. The while loop will run and print all characters till the end of the string.

Example 2: Read the string as input from the user using scanf:

You might want to read the string as input and store it in a character array. We can use scanf to do that.

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
    char arr[40];
    printf("Enter a name: ");

    scanf("%s", arr);

    printf("You have entered: %s\n", arr);
    return 0;
}

In this example, we are using scanf to read the user-input and storing it in arr. The printf is printing the content of arr.

It will work as like below:

Enter a name: Albert
You have entered: Albert

But, it will not work for string with blank spaces. For example:

Enter a name: Albert Einstein
You have entered: Albert

It stops the reading if it finds any blank space.

Read strings by using gets():

If you want to read strings with spaces, you can use gets. The gets method reads the user input until a newline character is found. It reads the user-input and puts the content in an array.

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
    char arr[40];
    printf("Enter a name: ");

    gets(arr);

    printf("You have entered: %s\n", arr);
    return 0;
}

It can read strings with spaces:

Enter a name: Albert Einstein
You have entered: Albert Einstein

If you are using gets, you might see this warning on compiling the program:

warning: this program uses gets(), which is unsafe.

This is because gets doesn’t check for array bounds and it might throw buffer overflow error.

Better alternative: use fgets:

You can use fgets instead. This is safe to use because we can pass the maximum characters to read as the second argument.

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
    char arr[40];
    printf("Enter a name: ");

    fgets(arr, 40, stdin);

    printf("You have entered: %s", arr);
    return 0;
}

It will give similar output and it will not show any warning message. If you are reading a string as user-input, fgets is the best way to do that.

You might also like:

• C program to read an unsigned integer value using scanf
• C program to convert decimal to binary
• C program to get the integer and fraction or decimal part
• C program to print all perfect numbers in a range
• C fsetpos method explanation with example
• C program to print a two-digit number to word
• How to find the income tax of an employee in C
• C program to multiply two numbers using plus or addition operator