C string append

I want to append two strings. I used the following command:

new_str = strcat(str1, str2);

This command changes the value of str1. I want new_str to be the concatanation of str1 and str2 and at the same time str1 is not to be changed.

Solution 1:

You need to allocate new space as well. Consider this code fragment:

char * new_str ;
if((new_str = malloc(strlen(str1)+strlen(str2)+1)) != NULL){
    new_str[0] = '\0';   // ensures the memory is an empty string
    strcat(new_str,str1);
    strcat(new_str,str2);
} else {
    fprintf(STDERR,"malloc failed!\n");
    // exit?
}

You might want to consider strnlen(3) which is slightly safer.

Updated, see above. In some versions of the C runtime, the memory returned by malloc isn't initialized to 0. Setting the first byte of new_str to zero ensures that it looks like an empty string to strcat.

Solution 2:

do the following:

strcat(new_str,str1);
strcat(new_str,str2);

Solution 3:

Consider using the great but unknown open_memstream() function.

FILE *open_memstream(char **ptr, size_t *sizeloc);

Example of usage :

// open the stream
FILE *stream;
char *buf;
size_t len;
stream = open_memstream(&buf, &len);

// write what you want with fprintf() into the stream
fprintf(stream, "Hello");
fprintf(stream, " ");
fprintf(stream, "%s\n", "world");

// close the stream, the buffer is allocated and the size is set !
fclose(stream);
printf ("the result is '%s' (%d characters)\n", buf, len);
free(buf);

If you don't know in advance the length of what you want to append, this is convenient and safer than managing buffers yourself.