C string append

Question

I want to append two strings. I used the following command:

new_str = strcat(str1, str2);

This command changes the value of str1

Answer 1

I write a function support dynamic variable string append, like PHP str append: str + str + ... etc.

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

int str_append(char **json, const char *format, ...)
{
    char *str = NULL;
    char *old_json = NULL, *new_json = NULL;

    va_list arg_ptr;
    va_start(arg_ptr, format);
    vasprintf(&str, format, arg_ptr);

    // save old json
    asprintf(&old_json, "%s", (*json == NULL ? "" : *json));

    // calloc new json memory
    new_json = (char *)calloc(strlen(old_json) + strlen(str) + 1, sizeof(char));

    strcat(new_json, old_json);
    strcat(new_json, str);

    if (*json) free(*json);
    *json = new_json;

    free(old_json);
    free(str);

    return 0;
}

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    char *json = NULL;

    str_append(&json, "name: %d, %d, %d", 1, 2, 3);
    str_append(&json, "sex: %s", "male");
    str_append(&json, "end");
    str_append(&json, "");
    str_append(&json, "{\"ret\":true}");

    int i;
    for (i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
        str_append(&json, "id-%d", i);
    }

    printf("%s\n", json);

    if (json) free(json);

    return 0;
}

Answer 2

You need to allocate new space as well. Consider this code fragment:

char * new_str ;
if((new_str = malloc(strlen(str1)+strlen(str2)+1)) != NULL){
    new_str[0] = '\0';   // ensures the memory is an empty string
    strcat(new_str,str1);
    strcat(new_str,str2);
} else {
    fprintf(STDERR,"malloc failed!\n");
    // exit?
}

You might want to consider strnlen(3) which is slightly safer.

Updated, see above. In some versions of the C runtime, the memory returned by malloc isn't initialized to 0. Setting the first byte of new_str to zero ensures that it looks like an empty string to strcat.

Answer 3

strcpy(str1+strlen(str1), str2);

Answer 4

Consider using the great but unknown open_memstream() function.

FILE *open_memstream(char **ptr, size_t *sizeloc);

Example of usage :

// open the stream
FILE *stream;
char *buf;
size_t len;
stream = open_memstream(&buf, &len);

// write what you want with fprintf() into the stream
fprintf(stream, "Hello");
fprintf(stream, " ");
fprintf(stream, "%s\n", "world");

// close the stream, the buffer is allocated and the size is set !
fclose(stream);
printf ("the result is '%s' (%d characters)\n", buf, len);
free(buf);

If you don't know in advance the length of what you want to append, this is convenient and safer than managing buffers yourself.

Answer 5

You can try something like this:

strncpy(new_str, str1, strlen(str1));
strcat(new_str, str2);

More info on strncpy: http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/clibrary/cstring/strncpy/

Answer 6

You could use asprintf to concatenate both into a new string:

char *new_str;
asprintf(&new_str,"%s%s",str1,str2);