Call a function named in a string variable in C

Question

I want to call a function using a variable. Is that possible in C?

Actually, what I want to do is, get the function name from the user and store it in a variable. Now I want to call the function that has its name stored. Can anyone tell me how this can be done in C?

I want to develop an AI game engine for a two player game. Two programs with no main function that implement the logic for winning the game will be fed to the game engine. Let me be clear that the program names will be same as that of the primefunctions in the program that implement the logic for winning the game.

So when the user enters the name of first and second players, I can store them in 2 different variables. Now, since the primefunction names are same as that of the program names, I intend to call the functions with variables containing the prog names.

Answer 1

C does not support this kind of operation (languages that have reflection would). The best you're going to be able to do is to create a lookup table from function names to function pointers and use that to figure out what function to call. Or you could use a switch statement.