removing duplicated names for array in c - arrays

Question

this is what i have to make: c. It should be possible to remove an animal with a specified name. If more animals with the same name exist, it should remove all the animal with the same name.
this is my code:
void deleteAnimalByName(char *animalName, int *nrOfAnimals, ANIMAL *animalArray)
{
for(int i = 0; i < *nrOfAnimals; i ++)
{
if(strcmp((animalArray + i)->Name, animalName) == 0)
{
for(int j = i; j < *nrOfAnimals - 1; j++)
{
animalArray[j] = animalArray[j + 1];
}
(*nrOfAnimals)--;
}
}
}
the outcome after tyring to delete the animals with the same name:
Animals in shelter: 1
Name: ted
Species: Parrot
Age: 1
only one gets deleted, the other one stays. what could cause this?

Answer 1

For starters the function should be declared at least like
size_t deleteAnimalByName( ANIMAL *animalArray, size_t nrOfAnimals, const char *animalName );
And the function can be defined like
size_t deleteAnimalByName( ANIMAL *animalArray, size_t nrOfAnimals, const char *animalName )
{
size_t n = 0;
for ( size_t i = 0; i < nrOfAnimals; i++ )
{
if ( strcmp( animalArray[i].Name, animalName ) != 0 )
{
if ( n != i ) animalArray[n] = animalArray[i];
++n;
}
}
return n;
}
As for your approach then it at least is inefficient because you move all elements of the array one position left after finding an element that need to be deleted.
Here is a demonstrative program
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
typedef struct ANIMAL
{
char *Name;
} ANIMAL;
size_t deleteAnimalByName( ANIMAL *animalArray, size_t nrOfAnimals, const char *animalName )
{
size_t n = 0;
for ( size_t i = 0; i < nrOfAnimals; i++ )
{
if ( strcmp( animalArray[i].Name, animalName ) != 0 )
{
if ( n != i ) animalArray[n] = animalArray[i];
++n;
}
}
return n;
}
int main(void)
{
ANIMAL animalArray[] =
{
{ "hare" }, { "hare" }, { "fox" }, { "hare" }
};
size_t nrOfAnimals = sizeof( animalArray ) / sizeof( *animalArray );
nrOfAnimals = deleteAnimalByName( animalArray, nrOfAnimals, "hare" );
for ( size_t i = 0; i < nrOfAnimals; i++ )
{
printf( "%s ", animalArray[i].Name );
}
putchar( '\n' );
return 0;
}
The program output is
fox