Concatenate two strings Last and First Name

There's a string concatenation method in C.
This is something you can use to achieve the desired output.
The method is strcat.
http://www.tutorialspoint.com/c_standard_library/c_function_strcat.htm

>> I would like to format as follows:  lastName,  firstName
Just be careful that your target has enough memory to allow for the concatenation; otherwise you can get crashes (which will be relatively easy to fix); or worse, you just overwrite memory of the object next to your string object. Worse because now you may not detect the problem immediately, and when you do, it may not be obvious that you overwrote memory beyond the bounds of your string array (or allocated memory).

Karrtik, what do I insert between the braces in this statement?

combined[101] ={} ;

When I use the strcat to concatenate the last and first name, I not sure as to how to add the comma to separate the lastName, firstName.  For example, it look like this, DoeJohn.

How would I include the comma in the destination parameter? I am newbie at C.

You can just say :
char combined[101] ={0} ;
This initialize all the elements in the array to null.

Below is an example on how to use sprintf, inline comments provided for each line.

char* first = "Doe"; //Length  = 3 
			char* last = "John";//Length  = 4
			char* combined = new char[strlen(first) + strlen(last) + 2];/* Combined length is length of first + length of last +1 so total length is 3+4+2 = 9, 2 at end because the char* are null terminated so 1 for comma and 1 for  the null terminator*/
			sprintf(combined,"%s,%s",first, last);

Select allOpen in new window

Similar example for strcat is below, I have added inline comments for each line to explain what it does.

			char* first = "Doe"; //Length  = 3 
			char* last = "John";// //Length  = 4 
			const char* commasymbol = ",";//comma symbol, length = 1
			const int combinedlength = strlen(first) + strlen(last) + strlen(commasymbol)+1;// Combined length is length of first + length of last +2 ( length of comma which is 1 +  1 character for Null terminator at the end)
			char* combined = new char[combinedlength];//so total length is 3+4+2 = 9
			memset ( combined, 0, combinedlength );//initialize all elements of the array to NULL (0)
			strcat(combined,first);
			strcat(combined,commasymbol);
			strcat(combined,last);			

Select allOpen in new window

to add to above comments:

char* combined = new char[combinedlength];

you normally would use a sufficently big char buffer for concatenation rather than to "spare" some memory and use dynamic memory. the latter is more error-prone and you have to free the buffer after use. so the code without dynamic memory is like

char szFullName[256] = { '\0' };  // use a big buffer. '\0' is a zero byte but 0 also is ok.
strcat(szFullName, "Doe");
strcat(szFullName, ", ");
strcat(szFullName, "John ");

Select allOpen in new window

'new' requires a c++ compiler while you asked for c. so in c it would be malloc/free and not new/delete to create and free dynamic buffers.

char * pszFullName = (char *)malloc(strlen(szLastName)+2+strlen(szFirstName)+1);
strcat(pszFullName, szLastName);
strcat(pszFullName, ", ");
strcat(pszFullName, szFirstName);
....
// free buffer after use
free(pszFullName);
// the pszFullName is invalid now

Select allOpen in new window

note, if you don't use a dynamic buffer you should make sure that you don't copy beyond buffer size by a check like the following:

void OutputFullName(const char * szLastName, const char * szFirstName)
{
      char szFullName[256] = { '\0' };  // to be safe use a big buffer  
      if (strlen(szLastName) + 2 + strlen(szFirstName) < sizeof(szFullName))
      {
             strcat(szFullName, szLastName);
             strcat(szFullName, ", ");
             strcat(szFullName, szFirstName);
             printf("%s\n", szFullName);
      }
}

Select allOpen in new window

Sara

Thanks Sara for point of new and delete being a C++ functionality. It was a miss from my end.
Here is a pure C version of my code which I shared earlier.
1> sprintf version

			char* first = "Doe"; //Length  = 3 
			char* last = "John";// //Length  = 4 
			const char* commasymbol = ",";//comma symbol
			const int combinedlength = strlen(first) + strlen(last) + strlen(commasymbol)+1;// Combined length is length of first + length of last +2 ( length of comma which is 1 +  1 character for Null terminator at the end)
			char* combined =(char *)malloc(combinedlength);
			memset ( combined, 0, combinedlength );//initialize all elements of the array to NULL (0)
			sprintf(combined,"%s,%s",first, last);
			//Do your work			
			//Finally at the end free the memory
			free(combined);

Select allOpen in new window

2> strcat version

			char* first = "Doe"; //Length  = 3 
			char* last = "John";// //Length  = 4 
			const char* commasymbol = ",";//comma symbol
			const int combinedlength = strlen(first) + strlen(last) + strlen(commasymbol)+1;// Combined length is length of first + length of last +2 ( length of comma which is 1 +  1 character for Null terminator at the end)
			char* combined =(char *)malloc(combinedlength);
			memset ( combined, 0, combinedlength );//initialize all elements of the array to NULL (0)
			strcat(combined,first);
			strcat(combined,commasymbol);
			strcat(combined,last);			
			//Do your work			
			//Finally at the end free the memory
			free(combined);

Select allOpen in new window