gets

char * gets ( char * str );

Get string from stdin

[NOTE: This function is no longer available in C or C++ (as of C11 & C++14)]

Reads characters from the standard input (stdin) and stores them as a C string into str until a newline character or the end-of-file is reached.

The newline character, if found, is not copied into str.

A terminating null character is automatically appended after the characters copied to str.

Notice that gets is quite different from fgets: not only gets uses stdin as source, but it does not include the ending newline character in the resulting string and does not allow to specify a maximum size for str (which can lead to buffer overflows).

Parameters

str: Pointer to a block of memory (array of char) where the string read is copied as a C string.

Return Value

On success, the function returns str.
If the end-of-file is encountered while attempting to read a character, the eof indicator is set (feof). If this happens before any characters could be read, the pointer returned is a null pointer (and the contents of str remain unchanged).
If a read error occurs, the error indicator (ferror) is set and a null pointer is also returned (but the contents pointed by str may have changed).

Compatibility

The C standard definitively removed this function in 2011 from its specification.
The function is deprecated in C++ (as of the 2014 standard).

Example

/* gets example */
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
 char string [256];
 printf ("Insert your full address: ");
 gets (string); // warning: unsafe (see fgets instead)
 printf ("Your address is: %s\n",string);
 return 0;
}

functions

objects

types

macro constants

gets

Parameters

Return Value

Compatibility

Example

See also