Reading and Writing Strings in C

Reading a String (Input):

• Using scanf() (single word only):

char str[20];
scanf("%s", str);  // Stops reading at whitespace

• Using gets() (reads whole line):

char str[50];
gets(str);  // Deprecated but allows spaces

• Using fgets() (safe alternative):

fgets(str, sizeof(str), stdin);

Writing a String (Output):

• Using printf():

printf("%s", str);

• Using puts():

puts(str);  // Adds newline automatically

Null Character (‘\0’):

The null character is used to terminate a string in C. Without it, functions like printf() would not know where the string ends.

char s[] = "Hi";  // Actually stored as {'H', 'i', '\0'}