macOS What's wrong with this program?

[hoangluong]

Hi, I'm trying to figure out where it goes wrong, but I still can't. This program aims to find min and max values among the 4 integers entered by the user. This is a programming exercise from King's book. Could you please help? Thanks a lot!!!

 // Programming Project 5.7
#include<stdio.h>

int main(void)
{
	int a = 0, b = 0, c = 0, d = 0;
	int max = 0, min = 0;
	
	printf("Enter 4 integers: ");
	scanf("%d%d%d%d", &a, &b, &c, &d);
		
	if(a > b && b > c && c > d) {
		max = a;
		min = d;
	}
	else if (b > c && c > d && d > a) {
		max = b;
		min = a;
	}
	else if(c > d && d > a && a > b) {
		max = c;
		min = b;
	}
	else if(d > a && a > b && b > c) {
		max = d;
		min = c;
	}

	printf("Largest: %d\nSmallest: %d\n", max, min);
	return 0;
}

 

[eddietr]

Would you mind putting the code in

 tags so it's quicker to read? It would be much easier for someone to help then.

 

[Cromulent]

Logic error.

None of your four if / else / else if statements is always true.

You have four variables. There are far more than 4 possible combinations available. For instance what happens in your program if d is greater than c and a is greater than d?

Edit : Added a little.

 

[robbieduncan]

Also stylistically it's not good. Personally I'd define two functions called min and max that take two arguements and return the expected min or max of arguements. Then you can simply call max(max(a,b),max(c,d)) to find the max and similar for the min...

 

[hoangluong]

Also stylistically it's not good. Personally I'd define two functions called min and max that take two arguements and return the expected min or max of arguements. Then you can simply call max(max(a,b),max(c,d)) to find the max and similar for the min...

Thanks. II'm working on the "if statements" chapter, so I'm supposed to use only if statements to do it. The exercise gives a hint that 4 if statements would be sufficient. As a self-taught novice, I find constructing nested if statements rather confusing in some cases.

 

[macsmurf]

Thanks. II'm working on the "if statements" chapter, so I'm supposed to use only if statements to do it. The exercise gives a hint that 4 if statements would be sufficient. As a self-taught novice, I find constructing nested if statements rather confusing in some cases.

Well, I don't think that is a very good hint. It might be possible to do it with 4 but the somewhat straightforward solution is to do it with 5. I'm at a loss as to how one would do it with 4.

Hints: For two variables one if-else statement should suffice. For each additional variable, two if statements in the form of if (..) {...} else if (...) {...} should suffice.

EDIT: OK, so I did it with 4 if statements as well, so it seems possible, but it's more of a puzzle than anything else. I still say aim for 5 or more as long as it works. Then see if you can do it smarter.

 

[macsmurf]

Apparently the thread starter has gone, but in case anyone is interested, here is a way to do it with four if statements:

 // Programming Project 5.7
#include<stdio.h>

int main(void) {
	int a = 0, b = 0, c = 0, d = 0;
	int min = 0, minab = 0, mincd = 0, max = 0, maxab = 0, maxcd = 0;
	
	printf("Enter 4 integers: ");
	scanf("%d%d%d%d", &a, &b, &c, &d);
	
	if (b > a) {
		minab = a;
		maxab = b;
	} else {
		minab = b;
		maxab = a;
	}
	
	if (c > d) {
		mincd = d;
		maxcd = c;
	} else {
		mincd = c;
		maxcd = d;
	}
	
	if (maxab > maxcd) {
		max = maxab;
	} else {
		max = maxcd;
	}
	
	if (minab < mincd) {
		min = minab;
	} else {
		min = mincd;
	}
	
        printf("Largest: %d\nSmallest: %d\n", max, min);
        return 0;
}

 

[robbieduncan]

Apparently the thread starter has gone, but in case anyone is interested, here is a way to do it with four if statements:

Very nice indeed. Although personally I'd prefer to use more if statements and fewer variables... but that's just a personal preference.

 

[hoangluong]

Hi Macsmurf, thanks a lot. I'm not gone. It's just because I'm trying to find time off my work and study for programming. I like to learn programming a lot but I just can't go to a programming class or so due to my work and non-IT majors at the uni. Could you or anyone help me with this program? It's from the King's book chapter on "Basic Types", i.e characters, integers, etc... I've written this program and it has bugs which I don't know where from. When I did the exercise converting from 24-hour format to 12-hour format, it was all OK. But when I'm doing the reverse it presents errors. Is the error due to not using getchar()? Thanks...

// Programming Project 7.9

#include<stdio.h>
#include<ctype.h>

int main(void)
{
	int hour12 = 0, minute12 = 0;
	char form1 = 0, form2 = 0;
	
	printf("Enter a 12-hour time: ");
	scanf("%d:%d%c", &hour12, &minute12, &form1, &form2);
	
	printf("Equivalent 24-hour time: ");
	
	form1 = toupper (form1);
	form2 = toupper (form2);
	
	if (form1 == 'A' && form2 == 'M') {
		if (hour12 == 0) printf("00"); 
		else if (hour12 == 1) printf("01"); 
		else if (hour12 == 2) printf("02");
		else if (hour12 == 3) printf("03"); 
		else if (hour12 == 4) printf("04"); 
		else if (hour12 == 5) printf("05"); 
		else if (hour12 == 6) printf("06"); 
		else if (hour12 == 7) printf("07"); 
		else if (hour12 == 8) printf("08"); 
		else if (hour12 == 9) printf("09"); 
		else if (hour12 == 10) printf("10"); 
		else if (hour12 == 11) printf("11"); 
		else if (hour12 == 12) printf("12"); 
		
	}
		
	else if (form1 == 'P' && form2 == 'M') {
		if (hour12 == 1) printf("13"); 
		else if (hour12 == 2) printf("14"); 
		else if (hour12 == 3) printf("15");
		else if (hour12 == 4) printf("16"); 
		else if (hour12 == 5) printf("17"); 
		else if (hour12 == 6) printf("18"); 
		else if (hour12 == 7) printf("19"); 
		else if (hour12 == 8) printf("20"); 
		else if (hour12 == 9) printf("21"); 
		else if (hour12 == 10) printf("22"); 
		else if (hour12 == 11) printf("23"); 
		else if (hour12 == 12) printf("24"); 
		
	}
	
	printf(":%d", &minute12);
	
	return 0;
}

 

[eddietr]

What is the error you are getting?

 

[hoangluong]

What is the error you are getting?

I compiled and ran it, but it gave unexpected results (wrong stuffs in bold) as below:

hoang-luong-luongs-macbook-pro:~ hoangluongluong$ cd King
hoang-luong-luongs-macbook-pro:King hoangluongluong$ gcc -o pp7_9 pp7_9.c
hoang-luong-luongs-macbook-pro:King hoangluongluong$ ./pp7_9
Enter a 12-hour time: 9:11PM
Equivalent 24-hour time: :-1073743560hoang-luong-luongs-macbook-pro:King hoangluongluong$

 

[eddietr]

I compiled and ran it, but it gave unexpected results (wrong stuffs in bold) as below:

OK, well I see two small mistakes in your code.

First in the scanf I believe you are missing one '%c'. It seems you want to get form1 and form2 as two characters.

And then also in this line:

printf(":%d", &minute12);

Here you are printing the memory address of 'minute12', when I think what you really want to print is the value of minute12.

Hope that helps.

 

[hoangluong]

OK, well I see two small mistakes in your code.

First in the scanf I believe you are missing one '%c'. It seems you want to get form1 and form2 as two characters.

And then also in this line:

printf(":%d", &minute12);

Here you are printing the memory address of 'minute12', when I think what you really want to print is the value of minute12.

Hope that helps.

Thanks a lot for your time! I made a very basic/stupid mistake. I've done many exercises from each of the chapters without committing this kind of mistakes, and then when I got stuck on this one I spent time thinking about the logic, etc... without being able to spot such a mistake. Thanks a lot.

Could you or anyone help me with the next one I just have tried.

// Programming Project 7.4

#include<stdio.h>

int main(void)
{
	char number;
	
	printf("Enter phone number: ");
	scanf("%c", &number);
	
	switch (number) {
		case 'A': case 'B': case 'C':
			printf("2"); break;
		case 'D': case 'E': case 'F':
			printf("3"); break;
		case 'G': case 'H': case 'I':
			printf("4"); break;
		case 'J': case 'K': case 'L':
			printf("5"); break;
		case 'M': case 'N': case 'O':
			printf("6"); break;
		case 'P': case 'R': case 'S':
			printf("7"); break;
		case 'T': case 'U': case 'V':
			printf("8"); break;
		case 'W': case 'X': case 'Y':
			printf("9"); break;
	}
	
	return 0;
		
}

The program is to translate an alphabetic phone number into numeric form (Programming Project 7.4 from King's book). Additional info: ABC = 2, DEF = 3, etc... When I entered ABC, for example, it gives just one 2, not three 2s and it guess this is where it's wrong. How do I fix this code?

 

[lee1210]

I would think that you'd want to read a character at a time in a loop, or a string once, then loop over the length of that string, decoding a character at a time. One way or the other, you are only reading one character, then decoding it presently, which isn't what you seem to be wanting to do.

-Lee

 

[eddietr]

Thanks a lot for your time! I made a very basic/stupid mistake. I've done many exercises from each of the chapters without committing this kind of mistakes, and then when I got stuck on this one I spent time thinking about the logic, etc... without being able to spot such a mistake. Thanks a lot.

Believe me, if you end up doing this for a living, you'll do this all the time. It's always good to have someone else look at it.

And it's also useful to step through something like this in the debugger. Then you'll see the value of a particular variable is nothing like you expected, and you'll figure out what's wrong.

When I entered ABC, for example, it gives just one 2, not three 2s and it guess this is where it's wrong. How do I fix this code?

Well, you are reading only one single character from the input.

 

[macsmurf]

Very nice indeed. Although personally I'd prefer to use more if statements and fewer variables... but that's just a personal preference.

Of course no one would do it like this in real life. In real life most people would probably just put the numbers into an array and sort it with whatever sorting algorithm is availiable through the standard library.

It's a good exercise, though.

 

[WhiteRabbit]

I think the min max problem could be solved more efficiently still.

int a, b, c, ... 
int min, max
// get input: a, b, c, ... are set to various values
min = a;
max = a;
if (b < min) min = b;
if (b > max) max = b;
if (c < min) min = c;
if (c > max) max = c;
// ... keep testing all values
// at this point, min will be equal to the smallest, and max the largest

This may result in more condition evaluations (n -1) * 2 or six needed for four values, but it's much easier to read. If the values are stored in an array, this could be simplified even further using a for loop.

 

[hoangluong]

Hi, thank you all for helping me out. I just wrote this program that computes scrabble value of a word, e.g. 1 = AEILNORSTU, 2 = DG, etc... I can't figure out where it goes wrong. It sums up not according to the assignment of numeric values to letters as I did for the switch statement. E.g: When I typed in "pitfall", it should be 12 instead of 7 as I currently receive.

// Programming Project 7.5

#include <stdio.h>
#include <ctype.h>

int main (void)
{
	char word;
	int scrabble_value = 0;
	
	printf("Enter a word: ");
	
	while (word = getchar() != '\n') {
		switch (tolower (word)) {
			case 'd': case 'g': scrabble_value += 2; break;
			case 'b': case 'c': case 'm': case 'p': scrabble_value += 3; break;
			case 'f': case 'h': case 'v': case 'w': case 'y': scrabble_value += 4; break;
			case 'k': scrabble_value += 5; break;
			case 'j': case 'x': scrabble_value += 8; break;
			case 'q': case 'z': scrabble_value += 10; break;
			default: scrabble_value++; break;
		}
	}
	
	printf ("Scrabble value: %d.\n", scrabble_value);
	
	return 0;
}

 

[hoangluong]

I would think that you'd want to read a character at a time in a loop, or a string once, then loop over the length of that string, decoding a character at a time. One way or the other, you are only reading one character, then decoding it presently, which isn't what you seem to be wanting to do.

-Lee

Thanks a lot for your hint. After a while thinking over your hint, I now came up with this revised program, which seems to be working properly this time.

// Programming Project 7.4

#include <stdio.h>
#include <ctype.h>

int main(void)
{
	char ch;
	
	printf("Enter phone number: ");
	
	while ((ch = getchar()) != '\n')	{
		switch (toupper (ch)) {
			case 'A': case 'B': case 'C': printf("2"); break;
			case 'D': case 'E': case 'F': printf("3"); break;
			case 'G': case 'H': case 'I': printf("4"); break;
			case 'J': case 'K': case 'L': printf("5"); break;
			case 'M': case 'N': case 'O': printf("6"); break;
			case 'P': case 'R': case 'S': printf("7"); break;
			case 'T': case 'U': case 'V': printf("8"); break;
			default: printf("9"); break;
		}
	}
	
	printf("\n");
	
	return 0;
}

 

[lee1210]

Hi, thank you all for helping me out. I just wrote this program that computes scrabble value of a word, e.g. 1 = AEILNORSTU, 2 = DG, etc... I can't figure out where it goes wrong. It sums up not according to the assignment of numeric values to letters as I did for the switch statement. E.g: When I typed in "pitfall", it should be 12 instead of 7 as I currently receive.

// Programming Project 7.5

#include <stdio.h>
#include <ctype.h>

int main (void)
{
	char word;
	int scrabble_value = 0;
	
	printf("Enter a word: ");
	
	while (word = getchar() != '\n') {
		switch (tolower (word)) {
			case 'd': case 'g': scrabble_value += 2; break;
			case 'b': case 'c': case 'm': case 'p': scrabble_value += 3; break;
			case 'f': case 'h': case 'v': case 'w': case 'y': scrabble_value += 4; break;
			case 'k': scrabble_value += 5; break;
			case 'j': case 'x': scrabble_value += 8; break;
			case 'q': case 'z': scrabble_value += 10; break;
			default: scrabble_value++; break;
		}
	}
	
	printf ("Scrabble value: %d.\n", scrabble_value);
	
	return 0;
}

!= has higher precedence than =. word = getchar() != '\n' is evaluated as if it were parenthesized as so:
word = (getchar() != '\n')

This leads to word either being equal to 1 or 0, and when it is equal to 0 the loop stops. You need to parenthesize the expression so the assignment to word is done first, then a comparison to 0 is made.

As a note, in this program and others you have posted, you've made the default in a switch handle all of the expected cases that you don't want to enumerate. Anything you are expecting should be enumerated, and default should handle the "unexpected" input. For example, the character '7' typed into your scrabble program will be valued with 1 point, since that is the default in your switch. Doing this would have also helped you catch this error, because you could display an error in the default: section of your switch, which would have been hit every time since word was 1 (not '1', but ascii 1).

-Lee

 

[WhiteRabbit]

Thanks a lot for your hint. After a while thinking over your hint, I now came up with this revised program, which seems to be working properly this time.

// Programming Project 7.4

#include <stdio.h>
#include <ctype.h>

int main(void)
{
	char ch;
	
	printf("Enter phone number: ");
	
	while ((ch = getchar()) != '\n')	{
		switch (toupper (ch)) {
			case 'A': case 'B': case 'C': printf("2"); break;
			case 'D': case 'E': case 'F': printf("3"); break;
			case 'G': case 'H': case 'I': printf("4"); break;
			case 'J': case 'K': case 'L': printf("5"); break;
			case 'M': case 'N': case 'O': printf("6"); break;
			case 'P': case 'R': case 'S': printf("7"); break;
			case 'T': case 'U': case 'V': printf("8"); break;
			default: printf("9"); break;
		}
	}
	
	printf("\n");
	
	return 0;
}

It looks like you're missing 'Q' from evaluation. And the last characters should be evaluated, the default should be no conversion (spit back what the user typed)

Here is a more efficient way to do it

char phone [] = "1-800-GIVE-LIFE  ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ\0";
for (int i = 0; phone [i]; i++) { // loop code for each char
// special cases
  if (phone [i] == 'S') phone [i] = '7';
  if (phone [i] == 'V') phone [i] = '8';
  if (phone [i] == 'Y'  ||  phone [i] = 'Z') phone [i] = '9';
// all other chars
  if (phone [i] < 'A'  ||  phone [i] > 'Z')
    continue; // non alphabetical, skip
  else
    phone [i] = (phone [i] - 'A') / 3 + '2'; // note the alpha '2' not numeric 2
}
printf ("%s\n", phone);
// output should be: 1-800-4483-5433  22233344455566677778889999

 

[hoangluong]

Can you please give me a hint for writing this program? The program aims to prints a 1-month calendar. The user gives the number of days in the month and the day of the week on which the month starts. I'm stuck on the if statement that tests whether a day is the last day in a week so that I can put in a new-line character. What's more, I'm stuck on how to print, say, the 1st day of the month that falls on the starting day that the user enters.

// Programming Project 6.8
#include<stdio.h>

int main (void)
{
	int nd = 0;
	int sd = 0;
	
	printf("Enter number of days in month: ");
	scanf("%d", &nd);
	printf("Enter starting day of the week (1=Sun, 7=Sat): ");
	scanf("%d", &sd);
	
	int i = 0;
	for (i = 1; i <= nd; i++) {
		if () {
		
		}
		printf("%5d", i);
	}
	
	printf("\n");
	
	return 0;
}

 

[macsmurf]

Can you please give me a hint for writing this program? The program aims to prints a 1-month calendar. The user gives the number of days in the month and the day of the week on which the month starts. I'm stuck on the if statement that tests whether a day is the last day in a week so that I can put in a new-line character. What's more, I'm stuck on how to print, say, the 1st day of the month that falls on the starting day that the user enters.

Here's a hint: Check out the modulus operator.

 

[WhiteRabbit]

Yes, the mod % operator is quite useful for determining if something is a multiple of, oh I don't know, perhaps seven.

Also, the best way to separate the days is a tab (use \t inside a string). If the user indicates the month starts on Tuesday, the first thing to do is tab over twice.

 

[hoangluong]

Thank you all. I have revised the calendar printing program as follows. I've tried hard to understand what I could do based on your hint, but I just couldn't. Here is a program that I wrote my way, which is rather bad as the output doesn't come out nicely (and the output doesn't seem right???). Could you please suggest a better/neater way to do it?

// Programming Project 6.8
#include<stdio.h>

int main (void)
{
	int nd = 0;
	int sd = 0;
	
	printf("Enter number of days in month: ");
	scanf("%d", &nd);
	printf("Enter starting day of the week (1=Sun, 7=Sat): ");
	scanf("%d", &sd);
	
	int i = 0;
	for (i = 1; i < sd; i++) {
		printf ("\t");
		for (i = 1; i <= nd; i++) {
			if (i == 8 - (8 % sd) || i == 15 - (8 % sd) || i == 22 - (8 % sd) || i == 29 - (8 % sd)) {
				printf ("\n");
			}
		printf ("%5d", i);
		}
		
	}
	printf ("\n\n");
	
	return 0;
}

I'm feeling so disappointed with my ability. I've read the first 10 chapters from King's book and tried to do all of the chapter projects. I could do correctly as few as half of the chapter projects only. Learning C is the first programming experience of mine and I've been doing it on my own because I can't go to a formal class.

I've seen that so many guys of you have taught yourself at least one programming language and it seems that most of you all have later become a true programmer/expert. It's very possible that I was born to learn sth else and not programming. The more I learn, the more interested I am in programming, but it also seems that the more challenging I find learning programming by self-study. Does any one of you have a similar experience when you first tried to pick up a programming language? I'm feeling so frustrated that when I look at a chapter it seems that there are only a few basic principles, all seeming basic/understandable/not difficult to comprehend, but when it comes to doing problems/projects/exercises I always get stuck on applying principles/theory to problems. Most of the exercises that I've posted in here are said to be simple, not complicated, but I've been struggling to get them right. So disappointed with myself.