Find multiple char sequences in char array.

[PacR]

Hello im trying to make a program to find names inside char array, but i get 4 errors:
error: cannot convert 'char (*)[9]' to 'char (*)[]' in assignment (line 20)
error: cannot convert 'char (*)[8]' to 'char (*)[]' in assignment (line 21)
error: cannot convert 'char (*)[8]' to 'char (*)[]' in assignment (line 22)
error: invalid use of array with unspecified bounds (line 24)

Here is my code so far:

#include <iostream>

int main()
{
    char a[] = "Laurence";
    char b[] = "Iosefka";
    char c[] = "Gilbert";

    char NameList[] = "Willem,Arianna,Gilbert,Eileen,Laurence,Iosefka";

    char (*ptr)[];

    unsigned int KeyNumb = 0;
    unsigned int CorrectInRow = 0;
    unsigned int NameNumber = 0;
    ptr = &a;

    for(unsigned int i = 0; i < sizeof(ptr); i++){

        if(NameNumber == 0){ptr = &a};
        if(NameNumber == 1){ptr = &b};
        if(NameNumber == 2){ptr = &c};

        if(NameList[i] == *ptr[KeyNumb]){
            CorrectInRow++;
            KeyNumb++;
            if(CorrectInRow == sizeof(ptr)-1){
                std::cout << "Found: " << ptr << " At: " << i << std::endl;
                NameNumber++;
                KeyNumb = 0;
                CorrectInRow = 0;
                continue;
            }
        }
        else{
            KeyNumb = 0;
            CorrectInRow = 0;
        }
    }
    return 0;
}

Thank you for reading.

[keskiverto]

You missed your first error message that is spawned by line 16.

You are learning arrays, pointers, and C-strings, are you?

Replace line 11 with:
char *ptr {nullptr};
(and several points on later lines to be consistent with that.)

[PacR]

Yes kaskiverto im learning arrays, pointers, and C-strings.
I should probably white at the beginning.
So now i will have to assign like this?

...
ptr{&a};
...

how to compare this?

...
if(NameList[i] == *ptr[KeyNumb])
...

Thank you for your answer.

[jonnin]

you can compare for equality of 2 c-strings via strcmp. if(strcmp(a,b) == 0) ..they are equal.

cstrings... you can do almost everything you need to do with just a few functions.

strcpy
strcmp
strstr

If you understand pointers, those 3 are almost all you need for most programs.

[PacR]

jonnin cant use strcmp() because it will only return first match and i'm planing on maybe having multiple of the same name.

[keskiverto]

Array decays to pointer trivially.

No, strcmp is not appropriate for a different reason, but strncmp is fine:

#include <iostream>
#include <cstring>

int main()
{
    const char* keys[] { "Laurence", "John", "Iosefka", "n", "Gilbert", "rt,E" };
    char NameList[] = "Willem,Arianna,Gilbert,Eileen,Laurence,Iosefka";

    for ( auto key : keys ) {
        std::cout << '=' << key << "=\n";
        size_t len = strlen( key ); // C-string is null-terminated
        const char* pos = NameList; // array decays to pointer
        while ( *pos ) { // C-string is null-terminated
            if ( strncmp( key, pos, len ) == 0 ) {
                std::cout << "Found " << key << " at "
                << (pos - NameList) << '\n'; // pointer math
            }
            ++pos;
        }
    }
}

[jonnin]

repeated searching for same string multiple times?

char * c = yourstring;
do
{
c = strstr(c, "something");
if(c)
{count++; c++;} //count++ can be replaced with whatever when you found a match logic.
//c++ can be replaced with c+= strlen if you don't want nested matches.
}
while(c);

[PacR]

Thank you all for your answers i'm currently studying them, will mark as answered when finished.