[c] How do I read a string entered by the user in C?

I want to read the name entered by my user using C programmes.

For this I wrote:

char name[20];

printf("Enter name: ");
gets(name);

But using gets is not good, so what is a better way?

On BSD systems and Android you can also use fgetln:

#include <stdio.h>

char *
fgetln(FILE *stream, size_t *len);

Like so:

size_t line_len;
const char *line = fgetln(stdin, &line_len);

The line is not null terminated and contains \n (or whatever your platform is using) in the end. It becomes invalid after the next I/O operation on stream. You are allowed to modify the returned line buffer.

You can use scanf function to read string

scanf("%[^\n]",name);

i don't know about other better options to receive string,

I found an easy and nice solution:

char*string_acquire(char*s,int size,FILE*stream){
    int i;
    fgets(s,size,stream);
    i=strlen(s)-1;
    if(s[i]!='\n') while(getchar()!='\n');
    if(s[i]=='\n') s[i]='\0';
    return s;
}

it's based on fgets but free from '\n' and stdin extra characters (to replace fflush(stdin) that doesn't works on all OS, useful if you have to acquire strings after this).

Using scanf removing any blank spaces before the string is typed and limiting the amount of characters to be read:

#define SIZE 100

....

char str[SIZE];

scanf(" %99[^\n]", str);

/* Or even you can do it like this */

scanf(" %99[a-zA-Z0-9 ]", str);

If you do not limit the amount of characters to be read with scanf it can be as dangerous as gets

I think the best and safest way to read strings entered by the user is using getline()

Here's an example how to do this:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    char *buffer = NULL;
    int read;
    unsigned int len;
    read = getline(&buffer, &len, stdin);
    if (-1 != read)
        puts(buffer);
    else
        printf("No line read...\n");

    printf("Size read: %d\n Len: %d\n", read, len);
    free(buffer);
    return 0;
}

On a POSIX system, you probably should use getline if it's available.

You also can use Chuck Falconer's public domain ggets function which provides syntax closer to gets but without the problems. (Chuck Falconer's website is no longer available, although archive.org has a copy, and I've made my own page for ggets.)