Trying to remove the last character in a char array in C

Question

So I wrote the following method:

void removeEndingColon(char *charArrayWithColon) {
    // remove ':' from variableName
    size_t indexOfNullTerminator = strlen(charArrayWithColon);
    charArrayWithColon[indexOfNullTerminator - 1] = '\0'; // replace ':' with '\0'
}

But when I test it with the following code in eclipse, I get no output and I don't know why my executable isn't able to run.

char *charArray1 = "ThisHasAColonAtTheEnd:";
removeEndingColon(charArray1);

What do you mean by no output and what do you mean by not able to tun what is the exact error you get — mmmmmm, Nov 18 '13 at 19:55
possible duplicate of [Why do I get a segmentation fault when writing to a string?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/164194/why-do-i-get-a-segmentation-fault-when-writing-to-a-string) — n. 1.8e9-where's-my-share m., Nov 18 '13 at 19:57
Does it say just "your .exe isn't able to run" ? That's a very bad error message indeed. — n. 1.8e9-where's-my-share m., Nov 18 '13 at 20:01
Please describe the ***exact*** error message. It would help if you describe your platform, (Linux/Windows/Other?) and how you're running your program (Command line, debugger, other?) — abelenky, Nov 18 '13 at 20:04

score 5 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:23

5

char *charArray1 = "ThisHasAColonAtTheEnd:";`

Here you point charArray1 to a string literal. In C, you cannot modify a literal. See e.g this question

You can store the string in an array which you can modify. So just do

char charArray1[] = "ThisHasAColonAtTheEnd:";

edited May 23 '17 at 12:23

Community

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answered Nov 18 '13 at 19:57

nos

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@QuinnLiu Next time **turn on compiler warnings and pay attention to them.** You should have gotten a warning when assigning a string literal to a non-const `char *`. – Nov 18 '13 at 20:00

Artur · Answer 2 · 2013-11-18T20:04:29.790

0

The problem here might be that your string is allocated in read only area so you cannot change it. Fist copy and edit a copy.

BTW. Depending on a compiler and execution environment it might actually work - on some embedded systems for example.

edited Nov 18 '13 at 20:04

answered Nov 18 '13 at 19:58

Artur

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Trying to remove the last character in a char array in C

2 Answers2