MIPS - compare input string to one stored in memory - mips

Question

I have a functioning string compare method written in MIPS (bit by bit comparison of two strings from an input by the user), but I'm trying to update it to compare the second input with one that I have stored in memory. (If those two are equal, I want to use the first string somewhere else).
However, I'm running into some issues. Here's my code:
.data
str1: .space 20
str2: .space 20
msg1:.asciiz "Please enter string (max 20 characters): "
msg2: .asciiz "\n Please enter method (max 20 chars): "
msg3:.asciiz "\nSAME"
msg4:.asciiz "\nNOT SAME"
.text
.globl main
main:
li $v0,4 #loads msg1
la $a0,msg1
syscall
li $v0,8
la $a0,str1
addi $a1,$zero,20
syscall #got string to manipulate
li $v0,4 #loads msg2
la $a0,msg2
syscall
li $v0,8
la $a0,str2
addi $a1,$zero,20
syscall #got string method
la $a0,str1 #pass address of str1
la $a1,str2 #pass address of str2
jal methodComp #call methodComp
beq $v0,$zero,ok #check result
li $v0,4
la $a0,msg4
syscall
j exit
ok:
li $v0,4
la $a0,msg3
syscall
exit:
li $v0,10
syscall
methodComp:
add $t0,$zero,$zero
add $t1,$zero,$a0
add $t2,$zero,$a1
loop:
lb $t3($t1) #load a byte from each string
lb $t4($t2)
beqz $t3,checkt2 #str1 end
beqz $t4,missmatch
slt $t5,$t3,$t4 #compare two bytes
bnez $t5,missmatch
addi $t1,$t1,1 #t1 points to the next byte of str1
addi $t2,$t2,1
j loop
missmatch:
addi $v0,$zero,1
j endfunction
checkt2:
bnez $t4,missmatch
add $v0,$zero,$zero
endfunction:
jr $ra
Essentially, what I was hoping to do was declare at the beginnning
strToCompare: .asciiz "foo"
and change where I pass the adress of str1 from
la $a0,str1 #pass address of str1
to
la $a0,strToCompare #pass address of strToCompare
Does anyone know why this would not work, or a better way to implement this?
Thanks a bunch, sorry if my formatting is off, this is my first time posting.

Answer 1

You are missing the line feed character (\n) that your input method (the system call you are using to input data from the user) is adding at the end.
You can either preprocess your input string to remove that line feed or add it to your stored string.
The latter is easy, just change
strToCompare: .asciiz "foo"
to
strToCompare: .asciiz "foo\n"