How to remove the character at a given index from a string in C?
CStringC Problem Overview
How do I remove a character from a string?
If I have the string "abcdef" and I want to remove "b" how do I do that?
Removing the first character is easy with this code:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
int main()
{
char word[] = "abcdef";
char word2[10];
strcpy(word2,&word[1]);
printf("%s\n", word2);
return 0;
}
and
strncpy(word2,word,strlen(word)-1);
will give me the string without the last character, but I still didn't figure out how to remove a char in the middle of a string.
C Solutions
Solution 1 - C
memmove can handle overlapping areas, I would try something like that (not tested, maybe +-1 issue)
char word[] = "abcdef";
int idxToDel = 2;
memmove(&word[idxToDel], &word[idxToDel + 1], strlen(word) - idxToDel);
Before: "abcdef"
After: "abdef"
Solution 2 - C
Try this :
void removeChar(char *str, char garbage) {
char *src, *dst;
for (src = dst = str; *src != '\0'; src++) {
*dst = *src;
if (*dst != garbage) dst++;
}
*dst = '\0';
}
Test program:
int main(void) {
char* str = malloc(strlen("abcdef")+1);
strcpy(str, "abcdef");
removeChar(str, 'b');
printf("%s", str);
free(str);
return 0;
}
Result:
>>acdef
Solution 3 - C
My way to remove all specified chars:
void RemoveChars(char *s, char c)
{
int writer = 0, reader = 0;
while (s[reader])
{
if (s[reader]!=c)
{
s[writer++] = s[reader];
}
reader++;
}
s[writer]=0;
}
Solution 4 - C
Really surprised this hasn't been posted before.
strcpy(&str[idx_to_delete], &str[idx_to_delete + 1]);
Pretty efficient and simple. strcpy uses memmove on most implementations.
Solution 5 - C
char a[]="string";
int toBeRemoved=2;
memmove(&a[toBeRemoved],&a[toBeRemoved+1],strlen(a)-toBeRemoved);
puts(a);
Try this . memmove will overlap it. Tested.
Solution 6 - C
int chartoremove = 1;
strncpy(word2, word, chartoremove);
strncpy(((char*)word2)+chartoremove, ((char*)word)+chartoremove+1,
strlen(word)-1-chartoremove);
Ugly as hell
Solution 7 - C
The following will extends the problem a bit by removing from the first string argument any character that occurs in the second string argument.
/*
* delete one character from a string
*/
static void
_strdelchr( char *s, size_t i, size_t *a, size_t *b)
{
size_t j;
if( *a == *b)
*a = i - 1;
else
for( j = *b + 1; j < i; j++)
s[++(*a)] = s[j];
*b = i;
}
/*
* delete all occurrences of characters in search from s
* returns nr. of deleted characters
*/
size_t
strdelstr( char *s, const char *search)
{
size_t l = strlen(s);
size_t n = strlen(search);
size_t i;
size_t a = 0;
size_t b = 0;
for( i = 0; i < l; i++)
if( memchr( search, s[i], n))
_strdelchr( s, i, &a, &b);
_strdelchr( s, l, &a, &b);
s[++a] = '\0';
return l - a;
}
Solution 8 - C
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
int main(){
char ch[15],ch1[15];
int i;
gets(ch); // the original string
for (i=0;i<strlen(ch);i++){
while (ch[i]==ch[i+1]){
strncpy(ch1,ch,i+1); //ch1 contains all the characters up to and including x
ch1[i]='\0'; //removing x from ch1
strcpy(ch,&ch[i+1]); //(shrinking ch) removing all the characters up to and including x from ch
strcat(ch1,ch); //rejoining both parts
strcpy(ch,ch1); //just wanna stay classy
}
}
puts(ch);
}
Let's suppose that x is the "symbol" of the character you want to remove ,my idea was to divide the string into 2 parts:
1st part will countain all the characters from the index 0 till (and including) the target character x.
2nd part countains all the characters after x (not including x)
Now all you have to do is to rejoin both parts.
Solution 9 - C
Use strcat() to concatenate strings.
But strcat() doesn't allow overlapping so you'd need to create a new string to hold the output.
Solution 10 - C
Following should do it :
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
int main (int argc, char const* argv[])
{
char word[] = "abcde";
int i;
int len = strlen(word);
int rem = 1;
/* remove rem'th char from word */
for (i = rem; i < len - 1; i++) word[i] = word[i + 1];
if (i < len) word[i] = '\0';
printf("%s\n", word);
return 0;
}
Solution 11 - C
I tried with strncpy() and snprintf().
int ridx = 1;
strncpy(word2,word,ridx);
snprintf(word2+ridx,10-ridx,"%s",&word[ridx+1]);
Solution 12 - C
Another solution, using memmove() along with index() and sizeof():
char buf[100] = "abcdef";
char remove = 'b';
char* c;
if ((c = index(buf, remove)) != NULL) {
size_t len_left = sizeof(buf) - (c+1-buf);
memmove(c, c+1, len_left);
}
buf[] now contains "acdef"
Solution 13 - C
Edit : Updated the code zstring_remove_chr() according to the latest version of the library.
From a BSD licensed string processing library for C, called zString
https://github.com/fnoyanisi/zString
Function to remove a character
int zstring_search_chr(char *token,char s){
if (!token || s=='\0')
return 0;
for (;*token; token++)
if (*token == s)
return 1;
return 0;
}
char *zstring_remove_chr(char *str,const char *bad) {
char *src = str , *dst = str;
/* validate input */
if (!(str && bad))
return NULL;
while(*src)
if(zstring_search_chr(bad,*src))
src++;
else
*dst++ = *src++; /* assign first, then incement */
*dst='\0';
return str;
}
Exmaple Usage
char s[]="this is a trial string to test the function.";
char *d=" .";
printf("%s\n",zstring_remove_chr(s,d));
Example Output
thisisatrialstringtotestthefunction
Solution 14 - C
This might be one of the fastest ones, if you pass the index:
void removeChar(char *str, unsigned int index) {
char *src;
for (src = str+index; *src != '\0'; *src = *(src+1),++src) ;
*src = '\0';
}
Solution 15 - C
This code will delete all characters that you enter from string
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#define SIZE 1000
char *erase_c(char *p, int ch)
{
char *ptr;
while (ptr = strchr(p, ch))
strcpy(ptr, ptr + 1);
return p;
}
int main()
{
char str[SIZE];
int ch;
printf("Enter a string\n");
gets(str);
printf("Enter the character to delete\n");
ch = getchar();
erase_c(str, ch);
puts(str);
return 0;
}
input
a man, a plan, a canal Panama
output
A mn, pln, cnl, Pnm!
Solution 16 - C
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#define MAX 50
void dele_char(char s[],char ch)
{
int i,j;
for(i=0;s[i]!='\0';i++)
{
if(s[i]==ch)
{
for(j=i;s[j]!='\0';j++)
s[j]=s[j+1];
i--;
}
}
}
int main()
{
char s[MAX],ch;
printf("Enter the string\n");
gets(s);
printf("Enter The char to be deleted\n");
scanf("%c",&ch);
dele_char(s,ch);
printf("After Deletion:= %s\n",s);
return 0;
}
Solution 17 - C
This is what you may be looking for while counter is the index.
#include <stdio.h>
int main(){
char str[20];
int i,counter;
gets(str);
scanf("%d", &counter);
for (i= counter+1; str[i]!='\0'; i++){
str[i-1]=str[i];
}
str[i-1]=0;
puts(str);
return 0;
}
Solution 18 - C
I know that the question is very old, but I will leave my implementation here:
char *ft_strdelchr(const char *str,char c)
{
int i;
int j;
char *s;
char *newstr;
i = 0;
j = 0;
// cast to char* to be able to modify, bc the param is const
// you guys can remove this and change the param too
s = (char*)str;
// malloc the new string with the necessary length.
// obs: strcountchr returns int number of c(haracters) inside s(tring)
if (!(newstr = malloc(ft_strlen(s) - ft_strcountchr(s, c) + 1 * sizeof(char))))
return (NULL);
while (s[i])
{
if (s[i] != c)
{
newstr[j] = s[i];
j++;
}
i++;
}
return (newstr);
}
just throw to a new string the characters that are not equal to the character you want to remove.
Solution 19 - C
This is a pretty basic way to do it:
void remove_character(char *string, int index) {
for (index; *(string + index) != '\0'; index++) {
*(string + index) = *(string + index + 1);
}
}
Solution 20 - C
A convenient, simple and fast way to get rid of \0 is to copy the string without the last char (\0) with the help of strncpy instead of strcpy:
strncpy(newStrg,oldStrg,(strlen(oldStrg)-1));