How to place " inside a string in C

Question

I'm attempting to use a strstr() to find the first occurrence of a double quote ("), however, when I use this line of code:

pch = strstr(tmp,""");

It won't compile because I don't have a terminating quote. So I used

pch = strstr(tmp,'"');

which then tells me I have an error like this:

passing argument 2 of ‘strstr’ makes pointer from integer without a cast [enabled by default]
  pch = strstr(tmp,'"'); //finds the first occurrence and deletes the preceeding
  ^
In file included from /usr/include/stdio.h:29:0,
                 from assignment1.c:1:
/usr/include/string.h:40:8: note: expected ‘const char *’ but argument is of type ‘int’
 char  *_EXFUN(strstr,(const char *, const char *));

Any ideas around this or does anyone know of a way to use strstr to detect a double quote character? Maybe with ASCII conversions?

This is given in any basic C book/tutorial. For your information look at C11's standard **6.4.4.4 Character constants**: `The single-quote ', the double-quote ", the question-mark ?, the backslash \, and arbitrary integer values are representable according to the following table of escape sequences: single quote' \' double quote" \" question mark? \? backslash\ \\ octal character \octal digits hexadecimal character \x hexadecimal digits` — haccks, Nov 09 '14 at 12:54
possible duplicate of [Include double-quote (") in C-string](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20458489/include-double-quote-in-c-string) — masoud, Nov 09 '14 at 12:59

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 09 '14 at 12:48

3

Use pch = strstr(tmp,"\""); and it will work

answered Nov 09 '14 at 12:48

Spikatrix

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`strchr` would be much better in this case – phuclv Oct 11 '20 at 01:03

phuclv · Answer 2 · 2020-01-13T07:27:05.793

To insert any special characters inside a string you need to escape it by backslash. If the compiler sees the escape character it knows that the following character doesn't have a normal role. \" will notify that the double quote doesn't end the string like normal so "\"" will result in a string with a double quote in it.

The full list of escape sequences is available here

Besides you can search with strstr but in case you just want to find the position of a single character then strchr will be much faster

pch = strchr(tmp,'\"');

score 1 · Answer 3 · edited Jan 17 '20 at 09:53

1

you have to type \" instead of "

edited Jan 17 '20 at 09:53

phuclv

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answered Nov 09 '14 at 12:49

tinyfiledialogs

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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 09 '14 at 12:55

0

You can escape the quotes! like this:

pch = strstr(tmp,"\"");

answered Nov 09 '14 at 12:55

Rizier123

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How to place " inside a string in C

4 Answers4