String comparison - Mini Project: Build & Apply

String comparison

📖 Scenario: You are creating a simple program to compare two words typed by a user. This is like checking if two names or passwords are exactly the same.

🎯 Goal: Build a program that reads two strings and tells if they are the same or different using string comparison.

📋 What You'll Learn

Use char arrays to store the two strings

Use strcmp function to compare the strings

Print "Strings are equal" if they match exactly

Print "Strings are different" if they do not match

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

String comparison is used in many programs to check passwords, search for words, or match user input exactly.

💼 Career

Understanding string comparison is important for software development, especially in input validation, data processing, and user authentication.

1

Create two string variables

Create two char arrays called str1 and str2 each with size 20.

C

#include 
#include 

int main() {
    char str1[20];
    char str2[20];
    // Your code here
    return 0;
}

Need a hint?

Use char str1[20]; and char str2[20]; to create the string variables.

2

Read two strings from the user

Use scanf to read input into str1 and str2.

C

#include 
#include 

int main() {
    char str1[20];
    char str2[20];
    scanf("%19s", str1);
    scanf("%19s", str2);
    // Your code here
    return 0;
}

Need a hint?

Use scanf("%19s", str1); and scanf("%19s", str2); to read the strings safely.

3

Compare the two strings

Use strcmp(str1, str2) to compare the strings and store the result in an int variable called result.

C

#include 
#include 

int main() {
    char str1[20];
    char str2[20];
    scanf("%19s", str1);
    scanf("%19s", str2);
    int result = strcmp(str1, str2);
    // Your code here
    return 0;
}

Need a hint?

Use int result = strcmp(str1, str2); to compare the strings.

4

Print if strings are equal or different

Use an if statement to check if result is 0. If yes, print "Strings are equal". Otherwise, print "Strings are different".

C

#include 
#include 

int main() {
    char str1[20];
    char str2[20];
    scanf("%19s", str1);
    scanf("%19s", str2);
    int result = strcmp(str1, str2);
    if (result == 0) {
        printf("Strings are equal\n");
    } else {
        printf("Strings are different\n");
    }
    // Your code here
    return 0;
}

Need a hint?

Use if (result == 0) to check equality and printf to show the messages.