How to add a value to a string?

Question

I am using C and the SDL library and am trying to express something like the following code:

Surface = SDL_LoadBMP("Resources/Images/ButtonPlay.bmp");

as something like this:

ButtonName = "ButtonPlay";
Surface = SDL_LoadBMP("Resources/Images/"+ButtonName+".bmp");

to introduce some type of templating.

I have tried various codes (including some from similar questions) and cannot get it to work.

I just want a quick and easy way to do it, preferably without any additional library.

Answer 1

You could use the strcat function (http://linux.die.net/man/3/strcat)

It allows you to join two string by appending the src arg to the dest arg.

ButtonName = "ButtonPlay";
res = strcat("Resources/Images/", ButtonName);
res = strcat(res, ".bmp");
Surface = SDL_LoadBMP(res);

You can find easier ways to do this but this one is clear and simple.

Answer 2

if you don't have an issue including <stdio.h> then you can do the following

char ResourcePath[1024];
ButtonName = "ButtonPlay";

sprintf(ResourcePath, "Resources/Images/%s.bmp", ButtonName);

Surface = SDL_LoadBMP(ResourcePath);