How to get substring in C

Question

I have a string, let\'s say \"THESTRINGHASNOSPACES\".

I need something that gets a substring of 4 characters from the string. In the first call, I should get \"THES\

Answer 1

char originalString[] = "THESTRINGHASNOSPACES";

    char aux[5];
    int j=0;
    for(int i=0;i<strlen(originalString);i++){
        aux[j] = originalString[i];
        if(j==3){
            aux[j+1]='\0'; 
            printf("%s\n",aux);
            j=0;
        }else{
            j++;
        }
    }

Answer 2

If the task is only copying 4 characters, try for loops. If it's going to be more advanced and you're asking for a function, try strncpy. http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/clibrary/cstring/strncpy/

strncpy(sub1, baseString, 4);
strncpy(sub1, baseString+4, 4);
strncpy(sub1, baseString+8, 4);

or

for(int i=0; i<4; i++)
    sub1[i] = baseString[i];
sub1[4] = 0;
for(int i=0; i<4; i++)
    sub2[i] = baseString[i+4];
sub2[4] = 0;
for(int i=0; i<4; i++)
    sub3[i] = baseString[i+8];
sub3[4] = 0;

Prefer strncpy if possible.

Answer 3

If you just want to print the substrings ...

char s[] = "THESTRINGHASNOSPACES";
size_t i, slen = strlen(s);
for (i = 0; i < slen; i += 4) {
  printf("%.4s\n", s + i);
}

Answer 4

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

int main() {
    char src[] = "SexDrugsRocknroll";
    char dest[5] = { 0 }; // 4 chars + terminator */
    int len = strlen(src);
    int i = 0;

    while (i*4 < len) {
        strncpy(dest, src+(i*4), 4);
        i++;

        printf("loop %d : %s\n", i, dest);
    }
}