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Preferred way to pass a string

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Preferred way to pass a string

Sep 20th, 2008

What's the preferred way to pass a string to and from a function?

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Re: Preferred way to pass a string

Sep 20th, 2008

The approach used by fgets() is a good way.

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Re: Preferred way to pass a string

Sep 22nd, 2008

as a pointer

you don't have to pass it back, because the calling function already knows the pointer

of course, you may always pass back a pointer, if for example you are doing a search for a substring.

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Re: Preferred way to pass a string

Sep 22nd, 2008

Passing back the original pointer is sometimes also used so that the function can be a nested function call. Example:

 Help with Code Tags 
 C Syntax (Toggle Plain Text) 
const char* foo(char *ptr)
{
    ...
    <snip>
    return ptr;
}
 
int main()   
{
     printf("%s\n", foo("How now brown cow."));
}
const char* foo(char *ptr)
{
    ...
    <snip>
    return ptr;
}

int main()   
{
     printf("%s\n", foo("How now brown cow."));
}

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