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I'm trying to find a way to split a single string into two separate variables. Right now I have:

char buffer[1024];
char firstName[16];
char lastName[16];
fgets(buffer, 1024, stdin);
sscanf(buffer, "%s %s", firstName, lastName);

When I later print the data, the first name is fine, but the last name will be the first and last combined. For example, when I enter "Joe Bob", the first would print "Joe" and the second would print out "Joe Bob". I have tried a few other ways such as using strtok and even sscanf with an offset pointer, but I keep getting the same result. How would I go about having the last name only contain the second name? I am using ansi C. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Nicholas Taylor
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    What you posted looks fine. Can you show us how you're printing them ? – cnicutar Apr 02 '13 at 18:44
  • http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2854488/reading-a-string-with-spaces-with-sscanf –  Apr 02 '13 at 18:46
  • Your code works as is. Are you sure you're printing `lastName` and not `buffer` by accident? Please provide a small sample of compileable code which will reproduce the issue. Did you try looking at what `firstName` and `lastName` contain in a debugger? – Mike Apr 02 '13 at 18:56

1 Answers1

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first, read the whole string:

char line[64];
scanf("%[^\t\n]", line);

second, split it with strok

char *firstName;
char *lastName;
char *search = " ";

firstName = strtok(line, search);
lastName = strtok(NULL, search);

UPDATE: as @Zack comments, it's safer other way to read the string:

#define BUFFER_SIZE 64
char line[BUFFER_SIZE];

if (fgets(line, BUFFER_SIZE, stdin) != NULL) {
   /* ... */
}
Miguel Prz
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  • I would like to upvote this, but your technique for "read the whole string" is *unsafe*. If the input has more than 64 characters which are not `\t` or `\n`, `scanf` will write past the end of `line` and overwrite whatever happens to be next to it in memory. This is the exact same syndrome that leads people to say "never use `gets`". You should recommend the use of `getline` if possible, `fgets` otherwise. – zwol Apr 02 '13 at 19:11