Trying to take someone's full name and return their initials in C

Question

I am new to C and I am trying to write a program that takes an entered name, like john smith, and returns the uppercase initials, JS. I've tried using a for loop and a while loop, but my code does not seem to increment, whenever I run it all it returns is the first initial. I've searched the web for this problem, but none of the solutions worked for me. What am I doing wrong? Thanks in advance.

Here is the code:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <ctype.h>
#include <string.h>

int main(void) {
  // initialize variables
  char name[61];
  int i = 0;

  // ask for user input
  printf("Please enter your name: ");
  scanf("%s", name);

  // print first initial
  printf("%c", toupper(name[0]));

  // print the next ones
  while (name[i] != '\0') {
    if (name[i] == ' ') {
      i++;
      printf("%c", toupper(name[i+1]));
    }
    i++; // does not increment
  }
  return 0;
}

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1247989/how-do-you-allow-spaces-to-be-entered-using-scanf — Rohit Rawat, Dec 31 '15 at 04:33
Don't forget to replace `i++;` in the `if` with `if(isalpha(name[i+1]))` — Spikatrix, Dec 31 '15 at 10:05

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 31 '15 at 04:33

1

scanf("%s", name) only reads the first name. You need something like scanf("%s %s", first_name, last_name)

answered Dec 31 '15 at 04:33

Xiaotian Pei

3,210
21
40

thanks :), I didn't know that scanf() stops after the first word – Andrew T Dec 31 '15 at 04:42
@jedimaster7 `%s` in `scanf` scans until a whitespace character. – Spikatrix Dec 31 '15 at 10:06

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited Dec 31 '15 at 10:09

1

scanf() reads the input until a space is encountered. So writing the full name will have a space in between the first and the last name. That would stop scanf() and it would read only the first name.

To read both input with space, better use fgets(). fgets() reads the string until a newline \n is encountered.

fgets(name, 61, stdin);

edited Dec 31 '15 at 10:09

Spikatrix

20,225
7
37
83

answered Dec 31 '15 at 04:36

Haris

12,120
6
43
70

1

@jedimaster7, you're welcome. And do gift me a light saber if possible.. ;) – Haris Dec 31 '15 at 04:40
@jedimaster7, BTW, you don't know the power of the dark side. ;) – Haris Dec 31 '15 at 04:41
I would gift you one if I knew you wouldn't use it for the dark side... ;) – Andrew T Dec 31 '15 at 04:47
@jedimaster7, You know I would ultimately turn good, lemme have a little fun with the dark side. – Haris Dec 31 '15 at 04:52

Trying to take someone's full name and return their initials in C

2 Answers2