Read from argv[0]

Question

How can I read from argv[0]? I'm using NetBeans. Everytime, I have to type in stdin. When I use argv, then the program executes without my input.

Here's my code:

int main(int argc,char *argv[])
{
  char *text;
  int textLen,repNum;

  text = stream2string(stdin,&textLen);
  //....text = argv[0] doesnt work :(

UPDATE:

When I compile and run, I have to Type an Example String! The string is always the same: ABAABAABBBA. So I will take the first argument instead of stdin. But argv[1] doesn't work either.

Here's stream2string():

char *stream2string (FILE *fptr, int *n)
{
  static char *s;

  *n = 0;
  ALLOC(s,char,2);
  s[*n] = getc(fptr);

  while(s[*n]!=EOF && s[*n]!='\0' && s[*n]!='\n') {
   REALLOC(s,char,++*n+2);
  s[*n] = getc(fptr);
   }
  s[*n] = '\0';
  return(s);
} /* stream2string() */

I think setting textLen is also important.

Answer 1

argv[0] is the name of your executable; I don't think you want to read from that! Rather, I think you want to open argv[1] (the filename given as the first argument to your program on the commandline) and read that:

int main(int argc,char *argv[])
{
  char *text;
  int textLen,repNum;
  FILE *theinput;

  if (argc < 2) {
    /* no argument */
    /* give error message and exit */
    fprintf(stderr, "Must pass an argument!\n");
    exit(1);
  }

  theinput = fopen(argv[1], "r");

  if (!theinput) {
    /* Argument is non-existing file */
    /* give error message and exit */
    fprintf(stderr, "Can't read %s\n", argv[1]);
    exit(1);
  }

  text = stream2string(theinput, &textLen);

  fclose(theinput);

etc. (Of course you can and should provide more detailed and helpful error messages, etc, etc, but I'm trying to focus on the key points that you appeared to be missing).

Edit: ah well, focus seems out of fashion, judging from the comments, so I just edited to provide minimally acceptable error messages.

Answer 2

Try to use argv[1] instead to read the first argument. argv[0] returns the name of the executable that was called (or the name of the link to the executable on Unix/Linux systems).

Answer 3

This sounds like you haven't set the program arguments for when it is run in the IDE. This is a NetBeans issue - nothing to do with C.