I want to test and see if a variable of type "char" can compare with a regular string like "cheese" for a comparison like:

#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{ char favoriteDairyProduct[30]; scanf("%s",favoriteDairyProduct); if(favoriteDairyProduct == "cheese") { printf("You like cheese too!"); } else { printf("I like cheese more."); } return 0;
}

(What I actually want to do is much longer than this but this is the main part I'm stuck on.) So how would one compare two strings in C?

1

5 Answers

You're looking for the function strcmp, or strncmp from string.h.

Since strings are just arrays, you need to compare each character, so this function will do that for you:

if (strcmp(favoriteDairyProduct, "cheese") == 0)
{ printf("You like cheese too!");
}
else
{ printf("I like cheese more.");
}

Further reading: strcmp at cplusplus.com

if(strcmp(aString, bString) == 0){ //strings are the same
}

godspeed

if(!strcmp(favoriteDairyProduct, "cheese"))
{ printf("You like cheese too!");
}
else
{ printf("I like cheese more.");
}

2

Have a look at the functions strcmp and strncmp.

You can't compare array of characters using == operator. You have to use string compare functions. Take a look at Strings (c-faq).

The standard library's strcmp function compares two strings, and returns 0 if they are identical, or a negative number if the first string is alphabetically "less than" the second string, or a positive number if the first string is "greater."

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