Compare equality of char[] in C

Question

I have two variables:

char charTime[] = "TIME";
char buf[] = "SOMETHINGELSE";

I want to check if these two are equal... using charTime == buf doesn't work.

What should I use, and can someone explain why using == doesn't work?

Would this action be different in C and C++?

Answer 1

char charTime[] = "TIME"; char buf[] = "SOMETHINGELSE";

C++ and C (remove std:: for C):

bool equal = (std::strcmp(charTime, buf) == 0);

But the true C++ way:

std::string charTime = "TIME", buf = "SOMETHINGELSE";
bool equal = (charTime == buf);

Using == does not work because it tries to compare the addresses of the first character of each array (obviously, they do not equal). It won't compare the content of both arrays.

Answer 2

In c you could use the strcmp function from string.h, it returns 0 if they are equal

#include <string.h>

if( !strcmp( charTime, buf ))