smallest number in array [C] - arrays

Question

I am trying to find the smallest element of an array, I think I am doing it correctly however I am receiving 0 as my smallest element, however, I am not entering 0 for any elements of my array.
I understand some things in here are done poorly but this is my whole code in order to be reproducible and fixed.
#include<stdio.h>
#include<string.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main(){
char input[500];
printf("Enter a list of whitespace-separated real numbers terminated by EOF or 'end'.");
puts("");
printf("-----------------------------------------------------------------------------");
puts("");
gets(input);
int size = strlen(input);
int elements[size];
int i = 0;
char *p = strtok(input," ");
while( p != NULL)
{
elements[i++] = strtol(p, NULL, 10);
p = strtok(NULL," ");
}
//NUM OF ELEMENTS
int numOfElements = 0;
for(int j = 0; j < i; j++){
elements[j] = numOfElements++;
}
//MIN ELEMENT
int min = INT_MAX;
for(int k = 0; k < i; k++){
if(elements[k] < min){
min = elements[k];
}
}
printf("-----------------------------------------------------------------------------\n");
printf("# of Elements: %d\n", numOfElements);
printf("Minimum: %d\n", min);
return 0;
}
RESULT:
Enter a list of whitespace-separated numbers.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 2 3 4 5
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
# of Elements: 5
Minimum: 0
EXPECTED:
Enter a list of whitespace-separated numbers.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 2 3 4 5
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
# of Elements: 5
Minimum: 1

Answer 1

The problem in the original posted excerpt was the else in this loop:
int min = INT_MAX; //I tried int min = elements[0] also
for(int k = 0; k < i; k++){
if(elements[k] < min){
min = elements[k];
}else{
min = elements[0];
}
}
Consider what happens if you're partway through the array, and you've updated min multiple times, but now you encounter an element that's >= min. The else will reset min to elements[0]. Just delete it:
int min = INT_MAX; //I tried int min = elements[0] also
for(int k = 0; k < i; k++){
if(elements[k] < min){
min = elements[k];
}
}
As an aside, either initialization of min will work. If you initialize it to elements[0], then you can start the loop at k = 1.
Update: The above answer was based on the originally posted code excerpt. Now that more code has been posted (and the fix I showed above has been applied), there are additional problems.
The main problem is the numOfElements loop. This loop completely erases the values in elements, replacing them with 0, 1, 2, etc. So the minimum value really is 0. It's not clear what the point of this loop is. I suggest deleting it entirely. The number of values in elements is just i, so there's nothing to compute. You could rename i to numOfElements if you like.
Other problems: (1) The code needs to include <limits.h> for the definition of INT_MAX, and (2) It should not be using gets. Change it to use fgets or something similar.

Answer 2

//NUM OF ELEMENTS
int numOfElements = 0;
for(int j = 0; j < i; j++){
elements[j] = numOfElements++;
}
problem in here, you reset the elements array when you get count of this array
here is gdb mess when pass here
(gdb) p min
$3 = 0
(gdb) p elem
elem-hash.h elements
(gdb) p elements
$4 = {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, -8096, 32767, 1431652112, 21845, 1431652512}
here is the right
//NUM OF ELEMENTS
int numOfElements = 0;
for(int j = 0; j < i; j++){
numOfElements++;
}