C Print out a string array

Question

I'm very new to programming in C and I'm trying to print an array of strings. I can enter the input easily enough but then when it tries to print the array the program stops responding. Any help is appreciated, thanks.

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

void main()
{
int a, b;
char answer[256];

for(a=1; a<=20; a++)
{
    scanf("%s", &answer[a]);
}

for(b=1; b<=20; b++)
{
    printf("%s\n", answer[b]);
}
}

Update: Thanks for all the fast replies everyone, the program is running smoothly now!

Answer 1

int a, b;
char answer[20][256];//<- array of char[256]

for(a=0; a<20; a++)//<- 0 origin
{
    scanf("%255s", answer[a]);//<- Reading of the string with a maximum 255 characters (One is reserved for the termination character('\0'))
}

for(b=0; b<20; b++)
{
    printf("%s\n", answer[b]);
}

Answer 2

1)

char answer[256];

is an array of chars, not strings. With the way, you wrote the rest of the code, you would need an array of arrays such as:

char answer[100][256];

2) scanf() expects char* for the format string %s. So you would only need:

scanf("%s", answer[a]);

3) main() should return int. So it should be: int main(void) or equivalent.

4) Another problem you have likely got wrong (looking at your loops) is that indexing in C is zero-based, not starts from 1.

Answer 3

Using

char answer[256];

you get only an array of characters, which can be used to store a string. To store an array of strings, use:

char answer[20][256];

That can be used to store 20 strings as long as none of those strings is longer than 255 characters.

void main()
{
   int a, b;
   char answer[20][256];

   ///////////////////////////////////////////
   // Notice the difference in the value of a.
   ///////////////////////////////////////////
   for(a=0; a<20; a++)
   {
      scanf("%s", answer[a]);
   }

   for(b=0; b<20; b++)
   {
      printf("%s\n", answer[b]);
   }
}