Reading an array of strings using scanf?

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So I've got this task that requires reading 4-character strings from standard input into an array. I tried one way but every time i tried printing any element of this array it always printed the last one from input. For instance input:
abcd
dcba
aaaa
...
zzzz (the 20th string)

printf("%s",arrayString[3]);

Output:
zzzz

Could anyone explain why is it working the way it is?

What I have tried:

char *stringArray[20];
char temp[4];
int i;
for(i=0;i<20;i++){
    scanf("%s",temp);
    stringArray[i]=temp;
    }

Posted 19-Nov-17 11:35am

Member 13478986

Updated 19-Nov-17 12:18pm

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Jochen Arndt · Accepted Answer · 2017-11-19T12:18:00

You have an array of 20 string pointers.
Each of these points to the same memory (temp).
Because that is used for reading the user input within a loop, it contains the last input string.

You can use a two-dimensional array instead:

C++

char stringArray[20][5];
int i;
for (i=0;i<20;i++)
{
    scanf("%4s", stringArray[i]);
}

Note that I have increased the input string size (there must be always one more character to store the terminating NULL byte) and added that limit also to the scanf format string.