'else' without a previous if in c

Question

I am new to C can anyone help me how to fix this code. I am getting a error:

'else' without a previous if

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
int main()
{
    char str1[20];
    char str2[20];
    int value;
    printf("Enter the string: ");
    scanf("%s",str1);
    printf("Enter the string: ");
    scanf("%s",str2);
    value=strcmp(str1,str2);
    if (value==0);
    printf("The strings are same");
    else
    {
        printf("The strings are not same");
    }
    return 0;
}

Please use braces for all blocks, and use correct indentation. If you stick to a [standard coding style](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1262459/coding-standards-for-pure-c-not-c), you can avoid issues like this in future. — costaparas, Feb 07 '21 at 13:10
Side note: [always check the return value of `scanf`](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10084224/how-do-we-test-the-return-values-from-the-scanf-function), but you probably shouldn't be using that to read in a string in the first place.. Consider using `fgets` instead (more details in [this post](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17294809/reading-a-line-using-scanf-not-good)). — costaparas, Feb 07 '21 at 13:10

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 07 '21 at 13:17

The problem here is that the semicolon after the if statement

if (value==0);

evaluates to: if value is equal to 0, do nothing.

The following line

printf("The strings are same");

not only would get executed every time, but also breaks the if-else apart so that the following else statement does not find any related if statement.

You could use braces here instead to prevent such problems in the future.

if (value == 0) {
  printf("The strings are same");
} else {
  printf("The strings are not same");
}

'else' without a previous if in c

1 Answers1