Random int 1-255 to character in C

Question

I have a function that returns an integer, between 1 and 255. Is there a way to turn this int into a character I can strcmp() to an existing string.

Basically, I need to create a string of letters (all ASCII values) from a PRNG. I've got everything working minus the int to char part. There's no Chr() function like in PHP.

Answer 1

A char is just an integer with a range of 255 values, and character literals like 'a' are just a number as well.

Just cast to a char.

char C = 67;
char c = 'c';
char zero = 'c' - 'c';
char also_zero = c - 'c';
/*Note: zero == 0*/

To use something like strcmp you need a char* though. The function expects a pointer to the first element of an array of chars (zero terminated) though and not the address of a single char.

So you want:

char szp[] = {c, '\0'};
int isDifferent = strcmp(szp, "c");

Answer 2

Just cast it to a char (as shown below). If you're going to use it in a string function (strcat, strcmp, etc), then it has to be in a char array with a null terminator ('\0') at the end (also shown below)....

int num = myrand(1,255);

char str[2] = {(char)num, '\0'};

...

if(strcmp(str, otherString...

Answer 3

Just cast it to a char:

char c = (char)myRandomInt;

Answer 4

In C, a char is basically an int between 0 and 255, so you can treat the integer directly as a char if you want to sprintf to a buffer or similar. You might want to make your function return a char, in fact, to make it obvious what's going on.