You could utilize scanf
's formatting rules to read your strings directly from the input line.
#include <ctype.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
int main ()
{
char part1[40], part2[40], part3[40];
int count, n;
do{
n = 0;
flushall();
printf("Enter Serial Number:\n");
count = scanf(" %39[A-Za-z]-%39[0-9]-%39[A-Za-z]%n", part1, part2, part3, &n);
if( count != 3 || n == 0 ){
printf("Recognize %i parts, %s\n", count, n == 0 ? "did not parse to the end" : "parsed to the end");
}
}while(count != 3 || n == 0);
printf("You entered %s\n", part1);
printf("You entered %s\n", part2);
printf("You entered %s\n", part3);
return 0;
}
This is quite a strict form of parsing the input and requires the user to keep the outer form. You can easily filter allowed strings by not using %s
but rather something like %[0-9]
. The best way for me to filter serialnumber inputs was always Regex if available... but i dont think this is part of your homework yet :)