strcmp function does not seemed to work

strcmp function does not seemed to work
result = strcmp (word, "FIREWALLGROUP=0"); this should be 0
but it is a 1. Nowhere in the code did I add a null (\0) character to
the array word.

word should be equal to FIREWALLGROUP=0

===============================
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <unistd.h>

int main()

{

FILE *file_pointer;
int i = 0;
char single_char;
char word[15];
int result = 99;

/*The statement below should yield FIREWALLGROUP=0 */
file_pointer = popen("cat /etc/yellowbox/network-config|grep FIREWALLGROUP | awk '{print $1}'", "r");

while(!feof(file_pointer))
{
single_char = getc(file_pointer);
word[i] = single_char;
printf("i = %d %c\n", i, word[i]);
i++;
}

printf("word = %s", word);
result = strcmp (word, "FIREWALLGROUP=0");
printf("result = %d\n", result);
====================================
The output result is shown below

root:~# ./test1
i = 0 F
i = 1 I
i = 2 R
i = 3 E
i = 4 W
i = 5 A
i = 6 L
i = 7 L
i = 8 G
i = 9 R
i = 10 O
i = 11 U
i = 12 P
i = 13 =
i = 14 0
i = 15

i = 16 ÿ
word = FIREWALLGROUP=0
ÿ¥ÿresult = 1

Not being too well versed in C, I might be off base here, but here goes...

strcmp returns the opposite of what you'd expect. If the passed variables match, 0 will be returned. 1 will be returned if they don't match.

I think that whoever designed the function just likes to make things confusing.

result = strcmp (word, "FIREWALLGROUP=0");

word = "FIREWALLGROUP=0"

I expect the variable result to be a 0 not a 1.
A valu of 0 means that they match.
I expect them to match, but they don 't.

Somebody help please.

You left out the null-terminator, so word was greater than "FIREWALLGROUP=0", which is what the return value of 1 means. Your dump of word shows this; it looks like word[15] contains a '\n' and word[16] contains the EOF.

Try this:

That should detect the new-line and terminate the string word in the proper place to get a valid compare.

Those garbage characters that came after the newline are a side-effect of your not having terminated the string and that first one, the 'ÿ', was printed out because of how your loop was written. You reached EOF when you tried to read past the newline, but you went ahead and added it to the string and output it. You see, when EOF is reached, getc() returns the value of EOF, which is a -1, which is a character value of 0xFF or 255, which is the character 'ÿ' (check Character Map if you have access to Windows).

Instead, you need to test for EOF before you treat the character returned by getc() as being valid. My rewrite should do that.

Ah..sorry. Misunderstood you. Is the newline (\n) throwing off the match, maybe?

Again, sorry if I'm off base. Just kind of throwing ideas out.