Why am I getting a new line here before print count value?

Question

Here's my code. Here's my desired output:

Occurrence of 'l' in Hello world = 3

But I am getting a new line after hello world. How I can fix this?

#include<stdio.h>
#include<string.h>
int main (void){
    char first_line[1000];
    char second_line[2];
    int i,n,j;
    int count=0,flag=0;
    fgets(first_line, 1000, stdin);
    fgets(second_line, 2, stdin);
    for(i=0; i<strlen(first_line); i++)
    {
        if(second_line[0]==first_line[i])
        {
            flag=1;
            count++;
        }
    }
    if(flag==1)
        printf("Occurrence of '%c' in %s = %d",second_line[0],first_line,count);

    else
        printf("%c isn't present",second_line[0]);

    return 0;
}

you're reading the line terminator (`fgets` does that). Just remove it using `first_line[strlen(first_line)-1] = '\0'` — Jean-François Fabre, May 04 '17 at 17:57
Possible duplicate of [query regarding line feed and fgets()](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/22125410/query-regarding-line-feed-and-fgets) — Jean-François Fabre, May 04 '17 at 17:58
'char second_line[2];' is not big enough for the char entered, the newline and a terminating 0. Please stop bean-counting and just make the array 128 or something. — ThingyWotsit, May 04 '17 at 18:01
@Jean-FrançoisFabre `first_line[strlen(first_line)-1] = '\0'` allows an exploit by the user by entering a _null character_ as the first character of `fgets()` input. Testing `strlen()` result first or `first_line[ strcspn( first_line, "\n" ) ] = '\0';` is better. — chux - Reinstate Monica, May 04 '17 at 18:54

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered May 04 '17 at 17:59

According to the description of the function fgets in the C Standard (7.21.7.2 The fgets function)

2 The fgets function reads at most one less than the number of characters speciﬁed by n from the stream pointed to by stream into the array pointed to by s. No additional characters are read after a new-line character (which is retained) or after end-of-ﬁle. A null character is written immediately after the last character read into the array.

To remove the new line character you can write for example

first_line[ strcspn( first_line, "\n" ) ] = '\0';

Why am I getting a new line here before print count value?

1 Answers1

Linked