SAS/C Library Reference, Vol. 1

gets -- Read a String from the Standard Input Stream

SYNOPSIS

 #include <stdio.h>

 char *gets(char *str);

DESCRIPTION

gets reads a line of data from the stream stdin and stores the data in the area addressed by str. The gets function terminates the input line with a null character.

Note: Although many of the code examples in this book use gets, this function should not be used in production code. gets was used to keep the SAS/C examples as simple as possible.

RETURN VALUE

gets returns str. If no characters are read due to end of file or if an error occurs during the read, 0 is returned.

IMPLEMENTATION

gets(str) is approximately equivalent to the following, except that the new-line character that terminates the input line is not stored:

 fgets(str, INFINITY, stdin)

Because there is no upper bound to the number of characters read, gets may store into memory beyond the bounds of str. Therefore, for safety, other functions should be considered instead of gets.

EXAMPLE

  #include <stdio.h>

  #define MAXLINE 80
  #define SAFETY 40

  main()
  {
     char line[MAXLINE + SAFETY];

     for (;;){

         /* Instruct user to type up to MAXLINE characters. To  */
         /*  end the program, enter EOF at the input prompt.    */
      printf("Enter a line of data (to %d characters)n",MAXLINE);

         /* Read data into str from stdin. */
      if (gets(line)){

           /* Write string to stdout; check for error. */
        if (puts(line) == EOF) break;
      }
      else break;
     }
  }

RELATED FUNCTIONS

fgets