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justinng

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Question on storing a couple of string into an array

With reference to the brief program segment below:

int index=0;
char *name[10];  // can hold up to a maximum of 10 strings
char str[50];
FILE *fp;

/* assume that file has been opened for reading */
while(fgets(str, 40, fp)) != NULL)
      strcpy(name[index++],str);

/* end of program segment */
Content of a file,
--------------------------------------------------
dog              0.123
cat              0.456
monkey           0.789
--------------------------------------------------

How can I store the just the name of the 3 animals in an
array called name? If possible, please include a program
segment or so to illustrate your point.

Is there anything wrong with my attempt of doing this?
Thanks for any help offered!
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ozo
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You'll probably get an error trying to write to an uninitialized pointer.
Try either
   char name[10][40];
or
   name[index++] = strdup(str);
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justinng

ASKER

erm.... thanx....and how about if I want to store only the
float value?

The problem is that

char *name[10]  

is an array of 10 pointers to strings.  That is, it is an array that has 10 items.  Those items are pointers to strings, but those pointers have not yet been iniitalized to point to strings.  This your code write to what ever they point to.  That's bad.

You could go through array and initialize each pointer, like

for (int i = 0; i < 10; ++i)
   name[i] = new char[100];

This makes eack pointer point to a dynamically allocated string of 100 characters.  However, to clean up you will have to go though and deleted [] each string at the end.  

This should do it
------------------------------------

int index=0;
char name[10][50];  // can hold up to a maximum of 10 strings
float value[10];
FILE *fp;

/* assume that file has been opened for reading */
while(feof(fp) != NULL) {
      fscanf(fp, "%s", name[index])
      fscanf(fp, "%f" value);
}
ozo's idea is to not use an array of string pointer's but to use an array of strings.  The array he suggested stores 10 strings that are 40 characters long.  It actually has space for the strings, rather than pointers to the strings.  

Thee are advantages and dissadvantages to each.  An array of string pointers is good for cases where the strings will have different lengths because you can allocate memory for each string for just the length you need.  The array of strings is simpler and safer (less room for bugs) but you must declare each line long enough to hold the longest line and it therefore wastes space.

To store the float values you could create and array of floats and store them just like the strings.  You could create a structure that stores both a string and a float and create an array of these.  Then you could store both the name and the value in one array.
I see q2quo has answered here and pointed out somthing I missed (ozo might of missed to)  You were running into the floats and needed to read them to get to the next string.  His algorithm will read and discard each float so that you can go on to the next string.
but how can i store just the float values into an array??
As nietod has pointed it out, my intention is to store the
name of the animal and the float values of it into 2 different
arrays one which is for the name of the animal and the other is
for the float values.
How should I go about it?

And also....how can I declare a long value of char???
I've tried the following,

long char *name[10];
char long *name[10];

but none of the above works in microsoft visual c++ 4.0....
it gives me an error saying its illegal.
Please correct me.
Oops....guess I missed out an important point in the content of the file,
-----------------
cats and dogs          0.123
mouse rats             0.456
elephant               0.789
-----------------

yeah....it should look like this.... anyway...I've managed to store the names into an array of strings (Thanks!) but it's just
the float values which is giving me a headache now :P

take q2_guo's answer and replace
      fscanf(fp, "%f" value);
with
      fscanf(fp, "%f", value[index++]);

(I think his answer was valid)

There is no such animal as a "long value of char".  What were you trying to do?

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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sllsgl

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