String

In this tutorial, we will learn how to declare a string and initialize it using example.



Declaration of string

Syntax

char variable_name[size];

Example

char name[10];
char city[20];



Initialization of string

There are multiple ways we can initialize a string.


Direct initialization

If we assign string directly with in double quotes, no need to bother about null character.

Because compiler will automatically assign the null character at the end of string.

i)Assigning direct string with size 


char country[6]=”india”;

Note

while giving initial size, we should always give extra one size to store null character.

To store "india", string size 5 is enough but we should give extra one (+1) size 6 to store null character.

In general to store N character string, we should create N+1 size char array.

ii)Assigning direct string without size


Example

char country[]=”india”;

In the above case, string size will be determined by compiler.



Character by character initialization

we can also assign a string character by character.

If we assign character by character , we must specify the null character '\0' at the end of the string.


i)char by char with size

Example

char country[6]={‘i’,’n’,’d’,’i’,’a’,’\0’};

ii)char by char without size

Example

char country[]={‘i’,’n’,’d’,’i’,’a’,’\0’};

Pictorial Explanation

strings in C

All four methods are perfectly valid.