Question

I have to read a txt file with lines formated like this:

 1: (G, 2), (F, 3) 2: (G, 2), (F, 3) 3: (F, 4), (G, 5) 4: (F, 4), (G, 5) 5: (F, 6), (c, w) 6: (p, f), (G, 7) 7: (G, 7), (G, 7) w: (c, w), (c, w) 

Each line will feed a struct with its data (the 5 numbers or letters in it).
What’s the best way to read the line and get the strings I want?
I’m currently using a long sequence of conditions using fgetc but that seems ugly and not very smart.
I can’t use arrays because the lines may vary in size if the numbers have two digits.

Answer 1

#include <stdio.h>  int main (void) {   char buf[81];       /* Support lines up to 80 characters */   char parts[5][11];  /* Support up to 10 characters in each part */    while (fgets(buf, sizeof(buf), stdin) != NULL)   {     if (sscanf(buf, '%10[^:]: (%10[^,], %10[^)]), (%10[^,], %10[^)])',                parts[0], parts[1], parts[2], parts[3], parts[4]) == 5)     {       printf('parts: %s, %s, %s, %s, %s\n',              parts[0], parts[1], parts[2], parts[3], parts[4]);     }     else     {       printf('Invalid input: %s', buf);     }   }   return 0; } 

Sample run:

$ ./test 1: (G, 2), (F, 3) 2: (G, 2), (F, 3) 3: (F, 4), (G, 5) 4: (F, 4), (G, 5) 5: (F, 6), (c, w) 6: (p, f), (G, 7) 7: (G, 7), (G, 7) w: (c, w), (c, w) parts: 1, G, 2, F, 3 parts: 2, G, 2, F, 3 parts: 3, F, 4, G, 5 parts: 4, F, 4, G, 5 parts: 5, F, 6, c, w parts: 6, p, f, G, 7 parts: 7, G, 7, G, 7 parts: w, c, w, c, w 

If the last value in the input is more than 10 characters it will be truncated with no indication of error, if this is not acceptable you can use the %c conversion specifier as a sixth argument to capture the next character after the last value and make sure it is a closing parenthesis.