gets, gets_s

Header: <stdio.h>

  1. Reads stdin into the character array pointed to by str until a newline character is found or end-of-file occurs. A null character is written immediately after the last character read into the array. The newline character is discarded but not stored in the buffer.

# Declarations

char* gets( char* str );

(removed in C11)

char* gets_s( char* str, rsize_t n );

(since C11)

# Parameters

# Return value

str on success, a null pointer on failure.

# Notes

The gets() function does not perform bounds checking, therefore this function is extremely vulnerable to buffer-overflow attacks. It cannot be used safely (unless the program runs in an environment which restricts what can appear on stdin). For this reason, the function has been deprecated in the third corrigendum to the C99 standard and removed altogether in the C11 standard. fgets() and gets_s() are the recommended replacements.

WARNING: Never use gets().

# See also