How toC: process files in a loop taking input from stdin

Hi I am new to C. I have to do an assignment where I have to take filenames as input and process each of them in a lop. What I am doing is taking the input in a space separated string (validations still incomplete) using strtok to retrieve individual filenames, putting them in an array, and processing each element of the array.
But when I am runnig the program, it is unable to open the last file inputted, though my debugging messages show that the last element contains the correct filename.

This is what I have got so far:

int main()
{
FILE *file;
int count;
char word[15] = {'\0'};
char query_string[256];
char *v_array[50];
int loop;
char *f_array[256];



printf("Enter the filenames to be searched separated by space\n");
fgets(query_string,sizeof(query_string),stdin);

f_array[0]=strtok(query_string," ");
printf("zeroth element is %s\n",f_array[0]);
if(f_array[0]==NULL)
{
printf("file not found\n");
return 0;
}

for(loop=1;loop<50;loop++)
{
f_array[loop]=strtok(NULL," ");

if(f_array[loop]==NULL)
break;
}

loop=0;



for(loop=0;loop<50;loop++)
{

if(f_array[loop]==NULL)
break;
printf("File %d is %s.\n",loop,f_array[loop]);


if ((file = fopen(f_array[loop], "r")) == NULL) {
printf("f_array[loop] is %i %s\n",loop,f_array[loop]);
fprintf(stderr, "File open error\n");
return(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
while(fscanf(file,"%s",word) == 1) {
printf("word is %s\n",word);
}
printf("closing file %s\n",file);
fclose(file);
}
//end of file name processing


return 0;
}

My input would go like this : text1.txt text2.txt text3.txt

Apart from not putting your code into a code block, nice post!

I'd suggest that you take a closer look at what is actually stored as the third filename - I think if you look closely enough you'll see that it actually contains an added surprise. Try removing the file processing, and just printing the name of each file inside ' ' marks.

Hint: The solution is to add just 2 characters to your source file!!

Thanks SimonB2. I found that the last filename contains a newline character.

I added this line after my fgets statement:

query_string[strcspn (query_string, "\n" )] = '\0';

This works. Is there any smarter way to do it? You mentioned adding just two characters in the sourcefile.


Also will strcspn work on all platforms if I have string.h included in the program?

Just change the delim string for strtok from " " to " \n" - make sure you do it for both of them, else it will fail - either when there's only 1 argument passed or when there's several, depending on which strtok you don't change.

Better make that add 4 characters to the source file - I didn't think through the fact that you'd need to change the delim string for both instances of strtok(I only changed it for the second).

[EDIT:] Yup, if you can compile while using strcspn, it'll work. As far as I know it's a part of the stdlib, so will be everywhere, unlike some of the nuggets found in TC's version of conio.h

Yep, that worked like a charm. Fantastic!! :-D Thanks a lot.