C program to find integer closest to 10 - c

Question

I am writing a program that will take any number of integers. The program will end when the terminal 0 has been entered. It will then output the number closest to 10 (except for the terminal character). If there are several numbers closest to 10 then it should output the last number entered.
My current code does read the numbers from the input stream, but I don't know how to implement the logic so that the program will give me the number that is closest to 10.
I know, that I need to keep track of the minimum somehow in order to update the final result.
#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
int n = 1;
int number = 1;
int numberArray[n];
int resultArray[n];
int min;
int absMin;
int result;
int finalResult;
while (number != 0) {
scanf("%d", &number);
numberArray[n] = number;
n++;
}
for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
min = 10 - numberArray[i];
if (min < 0) {
absMin = -min;
}
else {
absMin = min;
}
resultArray[i] = absMin;
result = resultArray[0];
if (resultArray[i] < result) {
finalResult = resultArray[i];
}
}
printf("%d\n", finalResult);
return 0;
}

Answer 1

here's a simple code I wrote
One thing I must say is you can't simply declare an array with unknown size and that's what you have done. Even if the no. of elements can vary, you either take input the number of elements from the user OR (like below) create an array of 100 elements or something else according to your need.
#include <stdio.h>
#define _CRT_NO_WARNINGS
int main() {
int n = 0;
int number = 1;
int numberArray[100];
int resultArray[100];
int minNumber;
int *min;
do {
scanf("%d", &number);
numberArray[n] = number;
n++;
}
while (number != 0);
resultArray[0] = 0;
min = &resultArray[0];
minNumber = numberArray[0];
for (int i = 0; i < n-1; i++) {
if(numberArray[i]>=10){
resultArray[i] = numberArray[i] - 10;
}
if(numberArray[i]<10){
resultArray[i] = 10 - numberArray[i];
}
if(resultArray[i] <= *min){
min = &resultArray[i];
minNumber = numberArray[i];
}
}
printf("\n%d",minNumber);
return 0;
}

Answer 2

I have improved your script and fixed a few issues:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <math.h>
#include <limits.h>
int main()
{
int n;
int number;
int numberArray[n];
while (scanf("%d", &number) && number != 0) {
numberArray[n++] = number;
}
int currentNumber;
int distance;
int result;
int resultIndex;
int min = INT_MAX; // [phone]
for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
currentNumber = numberArray[i];
distance = fabs(10 - currentNumber);
printf("i: %d, number: %d, distance: %d\n", i, currentNumber, distance);
// the operator: '<=' will make sure that it will update even if we already have 10 as result
if (distance <= min) {
min = distance;
result = currentNumber;
resultIndex = i;
}
}
printf("The number that is closest to 10 is: %d. It is the digit nr: %d digit read from the input stream.\n", result, resultIndex + 1);
return 0;
}
Reading from the input stream:
We can use scanf inside the while loop to make it more compact. Also, it will loop one time fewer because we don't start with number = 1 which is just a placeholder - this is not the input - we don't want to loop over that step.
I used the shorthand notation n++ it is the post-increment-operator. The operator will increase the variable by one, once the statement is executed (numberArray entry will be set to number, n will be increased afterwards). It does the same, in this context, as writing n++ on a new line.
Variables:
We don't need that many. The interesting numbers are the result and the current minimum. Of course, we need an array with the inputs as well. That is pretty much all we need - the rest are just helper variables.
Iteration over the input stream:
To get the result, we can calculate the absolute distance from 10 for each entry. We then check if the distance is less than the current minimum. If it is smaller (closer to 10), then we will update the minimum, the distance will be the new minimum and I have added the resultIndex as well (to see which input is the best). The operator <= will make sure to pick the latter one if we have more than one number that has the same distance.
I have started with the minimum at the upper bound of the integer range. So this is the furthest the number can be away from the result (we only look at the absolute number value anyway so signed number don't matter).
That's pretty much it.