Having difficulty printing strings

Question

When I run the program, the second printf() prints string2 with whatever was scanned into string1 attached to the end.

e.g.

Answer 1

In your code

 char string2[4]={'1','2','a','b'};

string2 is not null-terminated. Using that array as an argument to %s format specifier invokes undefined behavior, as it runs past the allocated memory in search of the null-terminator.

You need to add the null-terminator yourself like

char string2[5]={'1','2','a','b','\0'};

to use string2 as a string.

Also, alternatively, you can write

char string2[ ]= "12ab";

to allow the compiler to decide the size, which considers the space for (and adds) the null-terminator.

Same goes for abc also.

That said, you're scanning into string1 and printing string2, which is certainly not wrong, but does not make much sense, either.