Searching an Array (Looping with strcmp)

This lesson covers searching for a string in an array in C using strcmp, so you can check whether a target value is present. It's for anyone searching "C strcmp usage."

C has no mechanism for comparing strings directly with ==, so you compare them with the strcmp() function. strcmp() has a slightly unusual convention: it returns 0 when the strings match.

The example checks every element of the array in a for loop, updating a variable named found to 1 when the condition strcmp(fruits[i], "orange") == 0 is true. Using strcmp() instead of == is a characteristically C detail.

A common early mistake is using == to compare strings. Comparing with == compares a pointer's address, not the string's content, producing an unintended result.

In real projects, this search is used constantly to check whether a specific product ID or username is present in a list.

📖 Reference code

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

int main(void) {
    char *fruits[] = {"apple", "orange", "grape"};
    int found = 0;
    for (int i = 0; i < 3; i++) {
        if (strcmp(fruits[i], "orange") == 0) {
            found = 1;
        }
    }
    printf("%d\n", found);
    return 0;
}

✍️ Your code

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🧪 This site can't compile or run C directly, so it checks on the spot whether what you typed matches the reference code (scoring happens entirely in your browser — nothing is sent anywhere).