Copy string array index 0 using strcpy

Question

I'm attempting to copy one character (string array index 0) to another string array with 30 indexes.

This is a program to generate a username from two string arrays. firstName and lastName. The format of the username needs to be: jsmith (eg: the user enters john smith. the output should be jsmith.)

Here's what I have.

void generateName(char firstName[15],char lastName[15])
{
   char userName[30];

   strcpy(userName, firstName[0]);
   strcpy(userName, lastName);

   cout << "Your newly generated username is: " <<userName <<endl;
   getch();
}

I'm getting these errors:

Cannot convert 'int' to 'const char *' Type mismatch in parameter '_src' in call to 'strcpy char *,const char *)' Parameter 'firstName' is never used

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Because you need to use

   strcpy(userName, &firstName[0]);

instead. Parameters to strcpy need to be pointers, you were passing value of first character in the char array instead.

But that call above to strcpy will copy the whole firstName - up to and including the null terminator. If you only want to copy first letter you can do:

   memcpy(userName, &firstName[0], 1);
   strcpy(&userName[1], lastName); // append last name