Declaration of Strings in C

String Declaration

• String declaration in C refers to the process of creating a variable that can hold a string of characters.

• In C, a string is declared as an array of characters.

• The size of the array determines the maximum length of the string that can be stored in the variable.

The syntax for declaring a string in C is as follows:

char string_name[array_size];

Explanation

• Here, string_name is the name of the string variable, and array_size is the size of the character array that will hold the string.
• It specifies the maximum number of characters that the string can hold, including the null terminator.

For example:

The following code declares a string named greeting that can hold up to 19 characters:

char greeting[20];

Note that when declaring a string in this way, it does not have an initial value. To give a string an initial value, you can use the following syntax:

char greeting[20] = "Hello, World!";

String Declaration - Example

Here's an example of a C program that declares a string and uses it:

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
    // Declare a string to store a greeting message
    char greeting[20] = "Hello, World!";

    // Print the greeting message to the console
    printf("%s\n", greeting);

    // Return 0 to indicate that the program has executed successfully
    return 0;
}

Output:

Explanation

• We declare a string named greeting with an initial value of "Hello, World!".
• We then use the printf function to print the contents of the string to the console.
• The format specifier %s is used to print a string, and the \n character is used to print a newline after the message.
• Finally, the program returns 0 to indicate that it has executed successfully.