GW> It is legal C, but as it is modifying the original string, it is not
 GW> doing the same as a BASIC LEFT$[], which extracts a substring without
 GW> modifying the original.

   Yeah, there is that.  I'm pretty sure it's not ANSI-standard, but my
compiler has a memcpy() function, and I'd assume many other ones have
something similar.  If not, it wouldn't be too hard to write one (although it
would likely not execute as fast as one included with the compiler, but...)
Then he could just malloc() a chunk of memory, and copy x bytes from the
source string into it.  If writing his own memory-copy routine, he could also
include a check for 0, so he wouldn't copy more beyond the end of the string-
though as long as the allocated block was large enough (as it would be if it
was simply the same size as the source block), this wouldn't actually cause
any problems, it would merely slow things down a tad.

 GW> Sizeof does not give the length of a string, and cannot give the
 GW> length of malloc'd memory. That is why there is a strlen() function in
 GW> the standard library, but it's no use here.

   Yup, my mistake is pointed out again.    I was meaning strlen(),
even though I wrote sizeof().  As for strlen(), I'd assume it just takes the
pointer to the source string, initializes a counter variable, then loops
through, incrementing the counter by 1 and breaking out of the loop if 
string[counter]=0.  It would then return the last counter variable, which
would be the length of the string.  If this is how it works (and if it isn't
how it works, and you know how it does work, please let me know), it should
work with malloc'd memory just fine.

   Of course, as I pointed out in the previous message, simply 'remembering'
the number of bytes that were allocated (in the destination string, if he is
doing the 'extract sub-string without modifying original string) would likely
be preferable to a call to strlen() each time, even if it does work.

... "You know, it tastes kind of like chicken to me."  -J.C. Peter, Brujah
___ Blue Wave/DOS v2.30 [NR]

--- Maximus 2.01wb