Snippets

From C

1 Code Snippets

Code Snippets

Small code snippet, examples for common problems etc. should be linked here under the appropriate sections.

The Usenet section contains links to useful articles.

Standard I/O

character input functions return int, not char

 /* this is a non-working example */
 char c;
 while ((c = getchar()) != EOF) { ... }

The reason character input functions such as getchar return an int value is so that EOF can be represented outside of the otherwise valid range of characters. When this return value is assigned to a char variable, the EOF value (some negative value, often -1) is forced into the range of char thus making it impossible to distinguish between that character and an EOF indication.

be mindful of operator precedence

 /* this is a non-working example */
 int c;
 while (c = getchar() == EOF) { ... }

Due to precedence, the value assigned to c is the result of the comparison of the return value of getchar and EOF, rather than a copy of the character read.

reading a line from a stream without artificial limits

A number of people have written these sorts of things, here are a few:

James Antill's vstr: http://www.and.org/vstr
CBFalconer's ggets: http://cbfalconer.home.att.net/download/ggets.zip
Richard Heathfield's fgetline: http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/fgetdata.php
Brandon's GNU getline() clone: http://sfexplore.com/~bniemczyk/?page=getline_script
rfgets

Some platforms supply them as part of their standard(ish) library:

(Free|Net|Open)BSD have fgetln: http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=fgetln
GNU Libc has getline, which was standardized in POSIX.1-2008: http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/functions/getline.html http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/Line-Input.html

the <ctype.h> is* and to* functions require an unsigned char or EOF

The is* and to* functions require their argument to be an unsigned char as an int, or the EOF value. Sometimes this is what you already have, e.g., the return value from getchar:

 int c = tolower(getchar());

But if the character has been assigned to a char, say as part of a string, then suddenly it's not necessarily true that you have a value in the range [0,UCHAR_MAX] because char may be a signed type. So while it's tempting to write:

 /* this is a non-working example */
 void lower_case(char *s)
 {
   while (*s)
   {
     *s = tolower(*s);
     s++;
   }
 }

this is flawed and can have undefined behavior if char is signed and any of those bytes are outside the range [0,CHAR_MAX], as will often be the case with 'national characters'. This is one of the (few) cases where one should cast; in fact it can be argued that a cast here is required (see also Casting and Richard_Heathfield's article on casting):

 void lower_case(char *s)
 {
   while (*s)
   {
     *s = tolower((unsigned char)*s);
     s++;
   }
 }

gets is not safe

 char line[80];
 if (0 != gets(line)) { ... }

This is unsafe, because gets has no way to know the size of the buffer, line, so it can keep reading and storing bytes well past the end of the storage available. Please do not use it, even in your classwork.

One replacement is fgets:

 char line[80];
 if (0 != fgets(line, sizeof line, stdin)) { ... }

The return values possible are the same and have the same meanings, but fgets leaves the newline character in the buffer if it is read, so that you can determine if the entire line was in fact collected.

For more information on this subject see Richard Heathfield's page on Reading Data in C.

Datastructures/Algorithms

Linked Lists

Defining a structure that has a pointer member to its own type

struct item {
  int id;
  char *name;
  struct item *next;
};

typedef struct item item;
struct item {
  int id;
  char *name;
  item *next;
};

Be Advised: Most folks really, REALLY do not like the struct name masked by the typedef name. A far better alternative would be:

typedef struct item_ 
{
  int id;
  char *name;
  struct item_ *next;
} item;
/* or using case, to differenciate "defined types" */
typedef struct item
{
  int id;
  char *name;
  struct item *next;
} Item;
static Item *item = foo;

Type aliases (typedef's) do not exist until the closing semi-colon

/* this is a non-working example */
typedef struct {
  int id;
  char *name;
  item *next;
} item;

this fails to compile -- if it compiles you aren't compiling c, more likely you've got yourself some c++, so be careful of sharp corners -- here's why: 'item' is not an alias until after the semi-colon, thus within the struct body it is unknown so is a syntax error. the same for unions.

in fact the struct tagged 'item' isn't defined until after the semi-colon either, but all struct pointers have the same representation and are compatible, further you can create a pointer to an incomplete type (just don't dereference it).

in addition to the previous examples the following also works:

typedef struct item_ {
  int id;
  char *name;
  struct item_ *next;
} item;

Stacks

Ancient stack idioms

/* push */
*stackptr++ = item;

/* pop */
item = *--stackptr;

Random Stuff

Ranged Random Number

In Numerical Recipes in C: The Art of Scientific Computing (William H. Press, Brian P. Flannery, Saul A. Teukolsky, William T. Vetterling; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992 (2nd ed., p. 277)), the following comments are made:

If you want to generate a random integer between 1 and 10, you should always do it by using high-order bits, as in

j=1+(int) (10.0*rand()/(RAND_MAX+1.0));

and never by anything resembling

j=1+(rand() % 10);

(which uses lower-order bits).

To yield a pseudo-random number in a [min,max] range:

unsigned int randr(unsigned int min, unsigned int max)
{
    double scaled = rand() / (RAND_MAX + 1.0);
    return (max - min + 1) * scaled + min;
}

Threads

POSIX Threads

Threads are system objects similar to processes. They execute code and have own stack. However they share memory and file descriptors with the other threads inside a process. That's why, they're sometimes called lightweight processes. Most operating systems have thread implementation based on the popular POSIX standard. It is usually a library, called POSIX Threads or pthread.

Compilation

Linux or Mac OS X:

gcc -g -Wall -o pthread_example pthread_example.c -lpthread

FreeBSD:

gcc -g -Wall -o pthread_example pthread_example.c -pthread

Thread Creation

#include <stdio.h>
#include <pthread.h> /* POSIX Threads Library */

/* Simple thread Body */
void *thread_body(void *data)
{
	int my_data = *((int *)data);
	
	while(1)
	{
		printf("Hello world !!! This is a sample thread and you send me data %d\n", my_data);
	}
}

int main(void)
{
	pthread_t t; /* Thread handler */
	int i;
	int data = 10;

        /* New thread */
	if((i = pthread_create(&t, NULL, thread_body, (void *)&data)) != 0)
	{
		printf("pthread_create() error\n");
		return -1;
	}
	
	while(1)
	{
		printf("This is main thread\n");
	}

	return 0;
}

Thread Cancelation

#include <stdio.h>
#include <pthread.h> /* POSIX Threads Library */

/* Simple thread Body */
void *thread_body(void *data)
{
	int my_data = *((int *)data);
	
	while(1)
	{
		printf("Hello world !!! This is a sample thread and you send me data %d\n", my_data);
	}
}

int main(void)
{
	pthread_t t; /* Thread handler */
	int i;
	int data = 10;

	/* New thread */
	if((i = pthread_create(&t, NULL, thread_body, (void *)&data)) != 0)
	{
		printf("pthread_create() error\n");
		return -1;
	}
	
	/* Giving our thread some time before cancel ... */
	sleep(3);

	/* Canceling thread */
	if((i = pthread_cancel(t)) != 0)
	{
		printf("pthread_cancel() error\n");
		return -1;
	}	
	
	return 0;
}

Thread Exit & Join

#include <stdio.h>
#include <pthread.h> /* POSIX Threads Library */

/* Simple thread Body */
void *thread_body(void *data)
{
	int i = 0;
	int my_data = *((int *)data);
	
	for(i = 0; i <= 10; i++)
	{
		printf("Hello world !!! This is a sample thread and you send me data %d\n", my_data);
	}
	
	/* Exiting with return value */
	pthread_exit((void *)&i);
}

int main(void)
{
	pthread_t t; /* Thread handler */
	int i;
	int data = 10;
	int *ret;

	/* New thread */
	if((i = pthread_create(&t, NULL, thread_body, (void *)&data)) != 0)
	{
		printf("pthread_create() error\n");
		return -1;
	}
	
	/* Giving our thread some time ... */
	sleep(3);

	/* "Joining" our already exited thread */
	if((i = pthread_join(t, (void *)&ret)) != 0)
	{
		printf("pthread_join() error\n");
		return -1;
	}	
	
	printf("Our thread returned: %d\n", *ret);
	
	return 0;
}

Thread Syncronization with Mutexes

#include <stdio.h>
#include <pthread.h> /* POSIX Threads Library */

/* Synchronization Mutex */
pthread_mutex_t mutex = PTHREAD_MUTEX_INITIALIZER;

/* Global Variable, shared between threads */
int global;

/* Simple thread Body */
void *thread_body(void *data)
{
	int i = 0, j = 0;
	int my_data = *((int *)data);
	
	for(j = 0; j < my_data; j++)
	{
		/* Locking mutex */
		if((i = pthread_mutex_lock(&mutex)) != 0)
		{
			printf("pthread_mutex_lock() error\n");
			exit(-1);
		}
		
		/* Here we have exclusive access to "global" variable */
		global = my_data;
		printf("Child thread setting global variable to passed value. Value: %d. Global Variable: %d\n", my_data, global);
		
		/* Unlocking mutex */
		if((i = pthread_mutex_unlock(&mutex)) != 0)
		{
			printf("pthread_mutex_unlock() error\n");
			exit(-1);
		}
	}
		
	/* Exiting with return value */
	pthread_exit((void *)&i);
}

int main(void)
{
	pthread_t t; /* Thread handler */
	int i, j;
	int data = 10;
	int *ret;

	/* New thread */
	if((i = pthread_create(&t, NULL, thread_body, (void *)&data)) != 0)
	{
		printf("pthread_create() error\n");
		exit(-1);
	}
	
	/* Giving our thread some time ... */
	for(j = 0; j < data; j++)
	{
		/* Locking mutex */
		if((i = pthread_mutex_lock(&mutex)) != 0)
		{
			printf("pthread_mutex_lock() error\n");
			exit(-1);
		}
		
		/* Here we have exclusive access to "global" variable */
		global = j * data;
		printf("Main thread setting global variable to passed value. Global Variable: %d\n", global);
		
		/* Unlocking mutex */
		if((i = pthread_mutex_unlock(&mutex)) != 0)
		{
			printf("pthread_mutex_unlock() error\n");
			exit(-1);
		}	
	}

	/* "Joining" our already exited thread */
	if((i = pthread_join(t, (void *)&ret)) != 0)
	{
		printf("pthread_join() error\n");
		exit(-1);
	}	

	/* Destroying the mutex */
	if((i = pthread_mutex_destroy(&mutex)) != 0)
	{
		printf("pthread_mutex_destroy() error\n");
		exit(-1);
	}
	
	return 0;
}

Thread Syncronization with Mutexes and Condition Variables

Example Code from http://www.yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/LinuxTutorialPosixThreads.html

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <pthread.h>

pthread_mutex_t count_mutex     = PTHREAD_MUTEX_INITIALIZER;
pthread_mutex_t condition_mutex = PTHREAD_MUTEX_INITIALIZER;
pthread_cond_t  condition_cond  = PTHREAD_COND_INITIALIZER;

int  count = 0;

#define COUNT_DONE  10
#define COUNT_HALT1  3
#define COUNT_HALT2  6

void *functionCount1()
{
	for(;;)
	{
		pthread_mutex_lock( &condition_mutex );
		while( count >= COUNT_HALT1 && count <= COUNT_HALT2 )
		{
			pthread_cond_wait( &condition_cond, &condition_mutex );
		}
		pthread_mutex_unlock( &condition_mutex );
	
		pthread_mutex_lock( &count_mutex );
		count++;
		printf("Counter value functionCount1: %d\n",count);
		pthread_mutex_unlock( &count_mutex );
	
		if(count >= COUNT_DONE) return(NULL);
	}
}

void *functionCount2()
{
	for(;;)
	{
		pthread_mutex_lock( &condition_mutex );
		if( count < COUNT_HALT1 || count > COUNT_HALT2 )
		{
			pthread_cond_signal( &condition_cond );
		}
		pthread_mutex_unlock( &condition_mutex );

		pthread_mutex_lock( &count_mutex );
		count++;
		printf("Counter value functionCount2: %d\n",count);
		pthread_mutex_unlock( &count_mutex );
	
		if(count >= COUNT_DONE) return(NULL);
	}
}

int main(void)
{
	pthread_t thread1, thread2;
	
	pthread_create( &thread1, NULL, &functionCount1, NULL);
	pthread_create( &thread2, NULL, &functionCount2, NULL);
	pthread_join( thread1, NULL);
	pthread_join( thread2, NULL); 

	return 0;
}

Additional Documentation and tutorials

http://users.actcom.co.il/~choo/lupg/tutorials/multi-thread/multi-thread.html http://www.yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/LinuxTutorialPosixThreads.html

Sockets

Conversions

Integer to bitstring

 /* caveat: s must point to at least
  * (CHAR_BIT * sizeof (unsigned) + 1) chars of storage
  */
 void sprintb(char *s, unsigned n) {
     unsigned mask = ~(~0u >> 1);

     while (mask) {
         *s++ = n & mask ? '1' : '0';
         mask >>= 1;
     } 
     *s = '\0'; 
 }

Detecting data format problems with strtol

[this taken from channel chat -- 'cause i'm feeling lazy]

js_      | is there a way to check if strtol has set errno or not? 
         | i can't trust that it fails when it returns 0
Alipha   | js_: strtol has a second parameter for a reason
js_      | Alipha: oh
twkm     | js_: and remember that only specific errno's mean something, 
         | others may be just incidental to the process of conversion.
infobahn | js_: errno = 0; n = strtol(buf, &endptr, base); if(errno == ERANGE) 
         | { overflow or underflow } else if(endptr == buf) { no characters were 
         | converted } else if(*endptr == '\0') { ALL characters were converted } 
         | else { some characters were converted }
js_      | ahh, wonderful
Alipha   | if you strictly want to check for success, if(*endptr == '\0') { } 
         | would be sufficient. however, it would complicate things if "235 " also 
         | is acceptable or whatnot

How much room do I need?

The two main tricks used to calculate maximum size needed to store an integer are:

/* gives max size for a base 2 representation, including NIL byte */
#define BASE2_INT_SZ() ((sizeof(unsigned int) * CHAR_BIT) + 1)

/* do the same for base 8 (octal), including NIL and fractions */
#define BASE8_INT_SZ() ((BASE2_INT_SZ() + 1) / 3 + 1)

...note that this assumes "unsigned int" and "int" are the same size (if int is bigger to hold the minus, then you'll need an extra +1 in both to hold the minus sign on output -- however this would be very uncommon).

If it's not obvious, it is well known that the space required for base X, is always enough space for the same number in base > X. So either of the above will provide more space than needed for base 10 (decimal) or base 16 (hexidecimal) numbers in int.

Strings

There is no string type in c, which means there are some issues. Some nice coverage of it on the Strings page.

Some potentially useful (very small) string management code is available in dho's vstring API.

Debugging

Getting a backtrace on Linux

       #ifdef HAVE_BACKTRACE
       #include <execinfo.h>
       
       /************************************************************************************************
        * i check for the backtrace_symbols function in my configure.ac with:
        *    AC_CHECK_FUNC(backtrace_symbols, [AC_DEFINE(HAVE_BACKTRACE, 1, [backtrace_symbols check])])
        ************************************************************************************************/
       static void full_write(int fd, const char *buf, size_t len)
       {
         while (len > 0)
         { /* loop until all of the write request is done */
           ssize_t ret = write(fd, buf, len);
    
           if ((ret == -1) && (errno != EINTR))
             /* error occured... */ abort();

           buf += (size_t)ret;
           len -= (size_t)ret;
         }
       }
       
       void print_backtrace(void)
       {
         const char start[] = "BACKTRACE ------------\n";
         const char end[]   = "----------------------\n";
       
         void    *bt[128];
         int     bt_size;
         char    **bt_syms;
         int     i;
       
         bt_size = backtrace(bt, 128);
         bt_syms = backtrace_symbols(bt, bt_size);
         full_write(STDERR_FILENO, start, strlen(start));
         for(i = 1; i < bt_size; i++) {
           size_t len = strlen(bt_syms[i]);
           full_write(STDERR_FILENO, bt_syms[i], len);
           full_write(STDERR_FILENO, "\n", 1);
         }
         full_write(STDERR_FILENO, end, strlen(end));
       }
       #endif

Preprocessor

Turning symbols into strings

#define MAKE_STRING(x) #x

Now MAKE_STRING(foo) expands to "foo"

CONCAT

#define CONCAT(x,y) x##y

Now CONCAT(foo,bar) expands to foobar

String concatenation

#define CONCAT(x,y) MAKE_STRING(x##y)

Now CONCAT(foo,bar) expanded to "foobar"

Sharing values between translation units

An object may be defined but once, so a naive attempt attempt to share objects between translation units by definition in a header file can result in failure, often with a message like 'multiple definition'. here is just such a naive example, which we will correct:

 constants.h:

   double pi = 3.1415;

 foo.c:

   #include "constants.h"

   double foo(void) { return 2 * pi; }

 bar.c:

   #include "constants.h"

   double bar(void) { return 3 * pi; }

 main.c:

   #include <stdio.h>

   double foo(void);
   double bar(void);

   int main(void)
   {
     printf("%f\n", foo());
     printf("%f\n", bar());
     return 0;
   }

This can be made to work by replacing the definitions in the header file with references using extern to qualify the declaration. This yields something more like the following, in which i've also included header-guards so that multiple inclusion is benign and a header file for each translation unit with any identifier needed by another (i.e., foo.h and bar.h).

 constants.h:

   #ifndef CONSTANTS_H
   #define CONSTANTS_H

   extern double pi;

   #endif

 constants.c:

   #include "constants.h"

   double pi = 3.1415;

 foo.h:

   #ifndef FOO_H
   #define FOO_H

   double foo(void);

   #endif

 foo.c:

   #include "foo.h"
   #include "constants.h"

   double foo(void) { return 2 * pi; }

 bar.h:

   #ifndef BAR_H
   #define BAR_H

   double bar(void);

   #endif

 bar.c:

   #include "bar.h"
   #include "constants.h"

   double bar(void) { return 3 * pi; }

 main.c:

   #include <stdio.h>

   #include "foo.h"
   #include "bar.h"

   int main(void)
   {
     printf("%f\n", foo());
     printf("%f\n", bar());
     return 0;
   }

Allocating dynamic objects

Does the following call correctly allocate a vector of 10 elements of the type of vec?

vec = malloc(10 * sizeof(struct elem));

Only if vec really is a struct elem pointer. Even if it is correct, what if the declaration of vec is changed to the following?

struct node *vec;

Now, the above malloc() call is no longer correct and must be changed as well. In fact, all such instances of the sizeof operator with respect to the vec variable must be changed.

However, the following call is correct, regardless of the type of vec and remains correct through type changes.

vec = malloc(10 * sizeof *vec);

Rules of thumb for some type T and some size N:

T *vec;
vec = malloc(N * sizeof *vec);

T *obj;
obj = malloc(sizeof *obj);

char *str;
str = malloc(N);

Sleeping

If you wish to sleep for less than one second (as sleep(3) would provide from POSIX's unistd.h), and your system does not provide usleep(3), you may be able to use select(2) instead:

{
    struct timeval tv = { 0, n };
    select(0, 0, 0, 0, &tv);
}

Or with C99:

select(0, 0, 0, 0, & (struct timeval) { .tv_usec = n });

(Gleefully borrowed from Peter Seebach's Open source development using C99 article).

Copy a substring

char *substr(char *dst, const char *src, size_t len)
{
  sprintf(dst, "%.*s", len, src);
  return dst;
}

File* IO on large files (posix only)

/* This may not be needed at all on 64-bit OS platforms, but is commonly needed on 32-bit versions */

#define _POSIX_C_SOURCE 1
#define _FILE_OFFSET_BITS 64

/* on linux gcc this is sometimes needed although it probably should not be */
#define _GNU_SOURCE

/* open the file as normal with fopen */
FILE *file = fopen(fname, "r");
if (file == NULL) { /* error message */ }

/* seek with fseeko */

off_t pos = 42;
if (fseeko(file,pos,SEEK_SET) == -1) { /* error message */ }

/* get position with ftello */
pos = ftello(file);
if (pos==-1) { /* error message */ }

/* read as normal */

/* close as normal */
if (fclose(file) == -1) { /* error message */ }

Term[win] Dimensions

#include <sys/ioctl.h> 
#include <string.h> 
#include <errno.h> 
#include <stdlib.h> 
#include <stdio.h> 

int main(int argc,char **argv) 
{ struct winsize ws; 

    if (ioctl(0,TIOCGWINSZ,&ws)!=0)
    { 
        fprintf(stderr,"TIOCGWINSZ:%s\n",strerror(errno)); 
        exit(1); 
    } 
    printf("row=%d, col=%d, xpixel=%d, ypixel=%d\n", 
        ws.ws_row,ws.ws_col,ws.ws_xpixel,ws.ws_ypixel); 

    return 0; 
}

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