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What is String?

String is a nothing but a sequence of characters which is created using a char array in C language. As a string is constructed using a char array, hence the characters making up a string are stored in contagious memory locations(just like elements of any type of array).

How a String is created in C?

A String is nothing but a char array and it can be constructed in various ways and some are explained below -:

• First approach to create a string in C
  
  

  /* First approach to create a string in C */ 
  
  #include<stdio.h>
  
  int main()
  {
  char arr[] = {'W', 'e', 'l', 'c', 'o', 'm', 'e', '\0'};
  }


This line of code creates a new char array i.e. String with multiple characters making a single word Welcome. A string ends with a '\0' character, called a null character and it acts as a string-terminator. When creating a string using this approach, we must ends it with a '\0' character .



• Second approach to create a string in C
  
  

  /* Another approach to create a string in C */
  
  #include<stdio.h>
  
  int main()
  {
  char arr[] = "Welcome"; /* no need to end this string with \0 */
  }
  


This code creates a String using a char array and initializes it with a value Welcome. When creating a string using this approach, we don't have to end it with a '\0' character, as it is automatically inserted by the compiler when we press enter.






Creating multi-word strings


We could even create a multi-word strings using either of two explained approaches to create a string.



/* Creating multi-word strings in C */

#include<stdio.h>

int main()
{

/* creating a string - Hello there */
char arr1[] = "Hello there"; 

	
/* creating a string - How are you? */	
char arr2[] = "How are you?";	

/* creating a string - Hi there */
char arr3[] = {'H', 'i', ' ', 't', 'h', 'e', 'r', 'e', '\0'};

return 0;
}


This example creates three multi-words strings in the memory using char array, with the two approaches explained before.






Printing a string


Just as we can create a string in multiple ways, we can print a string in multiple ways, let us discuss some of these ways with code examples.



• Using for loop to print a string in C
  
  

  /* Using for loop to print a string a string in C */ 
  
  #include<stdio.h>
  
  int main()
  {
  
  /* Creating a multi-word string i.e. Hello World */
  char arr[] = {'H', 'e', 'l', 'l', 'o', ' ', 'w', 'o', 'r', 'l', 'd', '\0'}; 
  
  	for(int i=0;i<11; i++)
  	{
  		printf("%c", arr[i]); /* printing each character in string/char array using %c format specifier */
  	}
  	
  return 0;
  }





Output

Hello World



This line of code creates a new char array i.e. string which is multi-word i.e. Hello World. The total number of characters to be read in this multi-word string are 11, including the space between Hello and World and excluding the '\0', null character.





Hence, we have used a for loop to loop across the char array, reading it characters starting at its index 0 until its last index 10(excluding the null character), which prints the multi-word string Hello World






• Using while loop to print a string in C
  
  

  /* Using while loop to print a string a string in C */ 
  
  #include<stdio.h>
  
  int main()
  {
  
  /* Creating a multi-word string i.e. Hello World */
  char arr[] = "Hello World"; 
  
  	int i=0;
  	while(i<11)
  	{
  		printf("%c", arr[i]); /* printing each character in string/char array using %c format specifier */
  		i++;
  	}
  	
  return 0;
  }





Output

Hello World


Our last example also creates a new char array i.e. string which is multi-word i.e. Hello World. Here, we have used a while loop to loop across the char array, reading it characters starting at its index 0 until its last index 10(excluding the null character), which prints the multi-word string Hello World




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• Using format specifier %s to print a string in C
  
  

  /* Using format specifier %s  to print a string in C */
  
  #include<stdio.h>
  
  int main()
  {
  
  /* Creating a multi-word string i.e. Hello World */
  char arr[] = {'H', 'e', 'l', 'l', 'o', ' ', 'w', 'o', 'r', 'l', 'd', '\0'}; 
  
  printf("%s", arr); /* printing a string using %s format specifier */
  	
  return 0;
  }
  


This code creates a String using a char array and initializes it with a multi-word Hello World. We have used the format specifier %s , which is used to print the value of a string on the console.


In the next article, we are going to explain multiple ways to read a string entered by the user from the console using the in-built functions scanf() and gets(). We will also explain one more way to print the content of a string using the counterpart of gets() function, called puts(). See you in next tutorial!






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