How to input a character in character array using loop in C? [duplicate]

Question

what I want to do is input characters in character array in loop .I am new to c programming and don't know uses of pointers very well.my input is something like this :

INPUT:
a b
c d
e f upto n times

I have declared two arrays char a[n],b[n]; and I want to input a in a[0], b in b[1], c in a[2]...

Here is my attempt

char a[n],b[n];
for(i=0;i<n;i++)
{
  scanf("%c %c",&a[i],&b[i]);
  printf("%c %c",*(a+i),*(b+i));
}

but this doesn't work!!if I input: a b the output is a a `

Answer 1

If I run your code I get

a b
a bc d

 c  d

which means, that the enter you press after each line, will be interpreted as an input character by scanf(), since you told her to read characters. Also, I had n = 3, but the loop run twice, which also supports this idea.

You should change your scanf() to this:

scanf(" %c %c",&a[i],&b[i]);

which will eat the newline.

Here is a minimal example:

int main(void) {
  int n = 3;
  int i;
  char a[n],b[n];
  for(i=0;i<n;i++) {
    scanf(" %c %c",&a[i],&b[i]);
    printf("%c %c\n",*(a+i),*(b+i));
  }
  return 0;
}

Output:

a b
a b
c d
c d

The newline in printf() is just for formatting elegance, not something more, like a comment had wrongly suggested.

If you want, you can read my page:

Caution when reading char with scanf (C)

Answer 2

%c does not skip newlines. So your second scanf will first read the newline at the end of the first line instead of the 'c'.

You could change the scanf to scanf("%1s %1s", &a[i], &b[i]); but then you'll have to increase the size of the arrays by one.