working with string in c

You need:

char rollno[6]; // 5 is not enough for 5 characters and a terminator.
char name[20];
char mesg[]="12345expert"
int k;
k= strlen(mesg);
strncpy(rollno,mesg,5);
strcpy(name,mesg+5); // Just copy the rest.
printf("%s",rollno);
printf("%s",name);

You should now get
"12345expert"

which may still confuse you until you change it to:

printf("%s\n",rollno);
printf("%s\n",name);

Paul

which is basically what I said...

Does

    strncpy(rollno,mesg,5);

add the \0 in then?  I didn't realise that...

ahhh, I see, you could be relying on the rollno char arry being initialized to all \0s

strncpy will NOT append a '\0' if it copied the specified number of characters.

What asker probably should have done was:

char rollno[6]; // 5 is not enough for 5 characters and a terminator.
char name[20];
char mesg[]="12345expert"
sscanf ( mesg, "%5s%s", rollno, name );
printf("%s\n",rollno);
printf("%s\n",name);

But I was trying to fix the code, not rewrite it.

Paul

>>ahhh, I see, you could be relying on the rollno char arry being initialized to all \0s
But that's a good point too, so the code SHOULD have been:

char rollno[6]; // 5 is not enough for 5 characters and a terminator.
char name[20];
char mesg[]="12345expert"
int k;
k= strlen(mesg);
strncpy(rollno,mesg,5);
rollno[5] = '\0'; // Just in case.
strcpy(name,mesg+5); // Just copy the rest.

but I stand by my suggestion that sscanf would be a better tool here.

Paul

>> so the code SHOULD have been:

Which again is what I said...

Tim,

I offer a complete and utter retraction. The imputation was totally without basis in fact and was in no way fair comment and was motivated purely by malice, and I deeply regret any distress that my comments may have caused you or your family, and I hereby undertake not to repeat any such slander at any time in the future.

Paul