Separating a single string into two different strings in C

Question

I take user input in char name[20] using fgets like this:

fgets(name,20,stdin);            

The user enters two strings separated by white space like John Smith. What if I wanted to use John and Smith in two strings like char name[20] , char surname[20] or just compare John and Smith using strcmp?

I tried a lot, but I did not find any way to do this.

What are some ways to fix this kind of problem?

Answer 1

You need to learn char * strtok (char *restrict newstring, const char *restrict delimiters) function in C uses to splitting a string up into token separated by set of delimiters.

You input string John Smith is separated by space (' ') char. You need to write a code something like below:

char *token;
token = strtok(name, " ");  // first name 
strcpy(fname, token);
token = strtok(NULL, " ");  // second name 
strcpy(lname, token);

Answer 2

You will need to search for the blank within the string yourself - look up the strchr function for that. Then, use strncpy to copy the two parts in 2 different strings.

Answer 3

Use the strtok function to split strings.