Defining a string over multiple lines

Question

Please take the following:

char buffer[512];

memset(buffer, 0, sizeof(buffer));
sprintf(&buffer[0],\"This Is The Longest String In the World that in tex         


        

Answer 1

This too would just work as well:

char buffer[512];
sprintf(&buffer[0], "This is the longest string"
        "in the world that in text"
        "goes on and on and on and on ....");
printf("%s\n", buffer);

Answer 2

Although this may seem pedantic, I've been bitten enough times in the real world to have the following issues with the other two posted answers.

• The two posted answers neglect to give spaces between words joining the separate string literals (obvious, after the first test).

• If your string is really long, use snprintf() instead--it is slightly clumsier, but it tells anyone reviewing your code that you are aware of common dangers in code maintenance.

• If your string happens to contain %, you'll get a compiler warning (good) or random segmentation faults (bad). So use "%s" or, perhaps in this case, just strcpy(). (In two months' time, a co-worker could easily add 99.9% to the message.)

• The use of memset(), which I see often, is just cargo-cult programming. Yes, in special cases one needs it, but using it all the time sends the wrong message.

• And finally, why would anyone use &buffer[0] when just buffer would do?

So to summarize, your code should perhaps read:

char buffer[512];
snprintf(buffer, sizeof buffer, "%s", 
   "This is The Longest String "
   "In the World that in text "
   "goes on and on and on and on ....");
printf("Buffer:%s\r\n", buffer);

Answer 3

The newline continuation takes into account any whitespace within the code.

You can take advantage of string literal concatenation for better readability:

sprintf(buffer, "This Is The "
                "Longest String In the World "
                "that in text goes on and..");

Using \ you'll need to begin the continuation of your string at column 0:

sprintf(buffer, "This Is The \
Longest String In the World \
that in text goes on and..");