Converting int to string in C

Question

I am using the itoa() function to convert an int into string, but it is giving an error:

undefined reference to `itoa'
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status

What is the reason? Is there some other way to perform this conversion?

Answer 1

Use snprintf, it is more portable than itoa.

itoa is not part of standard C, nor is it part of standard C++; but, a lot of compilers and associated libraries support it.

Example of sprintf

char* buffer = ... allocate a buffer ...
int value = 4564;
sprintf(buffer, "%d", value);

Example of snprintf

char buffer[10];
int value = 234452;
snprintf(buffer, 10, "%d", value);

Both functions are similar to fprintf, but output is written into an array rather than to a stream. The difference between sprintf and snprintf is that snprintf guarantees no buffer overrun by writing up to a maximum number of characters that can be stored in the buffer.