Create array of arrays contating strings in C

Question

I have an array of strings:

array1[] = {
    "echo", "hi", "|",
    "sed", "s/i/ey/g", "|",
    "sed", "s/y/ll/g", "|",
    "sed", "s/$/o/g", "|",
    "cat"
};

I want to split this array into arrays by "|" string like below:

array2[][] = {
    { "echo", "hi" },
    { "sed", "s/i/ey/g" },
    { "sed", "s/y/ll/g" },
    { "sed",‌ "s/$/o/g" },
    { "cat" }
};

How can I do this in C?

Can you explain more what you are trying to achieve? Maybe you can show us your desired output? — RoadRunner, Dec 22 '16 at 16:19
what about using http://en.cppreference.com/w/c/string/byte/strtok or see here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9210528/split-string-with-delimiters-in-c — Jarlik Stepsto, Dec 22 '16 at 16:21
@Dake, yeah it's just hard to see what you are trying to achieve with this code. It would be good if you can include some examples. — RoadRunner, Dec 22 '16 at 16:22
The string array in the first paragraph does not contain strings. It would need to be `{"echo", "hi", ...` etc. — Weather Vane, Dec 22 '16 at 16:25
I appreciate your help, so edited my post, now i think it is more clear.. — Dake, Dec 22 '16 at 16:53
In fact, you do not have array of strings. What you have in your example is an array of `const char *` — badera, Dec 22 '16 at 18:02
What have you tried? It can be done easily enough — though the second array definition is not valid in C because you must supply all dimensions of an array except perhaps the first (and you need to define the base type, `char`, too). If you're going to be using this to run the commands via `execvp()` or similar, you want a null pointer at the end of each set of strings in `array2`. From a `sed` perspective, you only need 1 sed command; from a shell perspective, you don't need the `cat`. I assume they're like that to give a number of command strings rather than because it's good shell script. — Jonathan Leffler, Dec 22 '16 at 18:38
You could try an array of structs. A lower level struct containing each row along with number of columns, and a higher level struct which contains the 2d array of strings, along with the number of rows. Although this would be somewhat complicated, it would handle the inconsistent columns issue perfectly. — RoadRunner, Dec 23 '16 at 05:13

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 22 '16 at 22:34

You want something like:

char *array2[][2] = {
    {"echo", "hi"},
    {"sed", "s/i/ey/g"},
    {"sed", "s/y/ll/g"},
    {"sed", "s/$/o/g"},
    {"cat", NULL}
};

From memory:

The inner dimension of the array needs to be specified (technically every dimension except the outer)
You don't want to use smart quotes (copying your program gave all sorts of unicode stuff)
The inner demension must be constant (see catline which needed a NULL)
You need to declare what it is a 2-dimension array of (in this case char * which was missing form the definitnion)

usually "innermost" refers to the dimension next to the identifier, and "outermost" refers to the dimension at the right — M.M, Dec 22 '16 at 22:44

Create array of arrays contating strings in C

1 Answers1