I have two pieces of codes to test how the two console I/O functions, getchar() & scanf(), handle the EOF. But I still do not have a clear comprehension about the actual operations behind the outputs and their behaviors. Can someone explains that for me? Thanks a lot! (I am using Windows OS)
// 1st piece of Code
#include <stdio.h>
#include <ctype.h>
int main(void)
{
char ch;
while ((ch=getchar()) != EOF)
{
putchar(toupper(ch));
}
return 0;
}
If I type
abc
or
abc(ctrl+z)
The program will have the same outputs:
ABC
// 2nd piece of Code
#include<stdio.h>
int main(void)
{
int x;
while(scanf("%d",&x) != EOF)
{
/*Ctrl + z + Enter*/
printf("x=%d\n",x);
}
return 0;
}
If I type
123
The program will output:
x=123
Otherwise, if I type
123(ctrl+z)
The program will have an infinite output:
x=123
x=123
x=123
x=123
...
getchar() returns the value of the character converted to unsigned char or EOF in case of error.
The error can be "end of file" or something else; usually (for getchar()) the programmer does not care about the error, just that an error happened.
scanf() returns the number of values matched and assigned (basically the number of % in the format string) or EOF in case of error. Note that the number can be less than the number of % in case, for example, of badly formatted input
Just like for getchar() the error can be "end of file" or something else. Particularly, reading less than the number of % is not an error.
So you may prefer to test for the correct number of assignments rather than testing for error in scanf()
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void) {
int x;
while (scanf("%d", &x) != 1) {
/*Ctrl + z + Enter*/
printf("x=%d\n", x);
}
return 0;
}
The problem is that on Windows the EOF is put into the input buffer like a normal character (with the encoded value 26).
When reading character by character (with e.g. getchar) this is handled by the Windows run-time library. But it doesn't work like that with scanf because when scanf parses the input it's like another character. And as a non-digit it's an invalid character for te "%d" format, leading to your scanf Call to return 0 instead of EOF (since it's not parsed by the format).
One way to solve it is to press the Ctrl-Z sequence on its own new line.
Another (and more reliable) way to solve it is to check that scanf returns the number of formats you have in the string. In your case you should compare against 1 (as you have one format specifier).
Related
I have wrote the following code using c programming language (Standard 89):
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main()
{
int cc,dd;
scanf("%d/%d",&cc,&dd);
int ll;
scanf("%d",&ll);
printf("Value of ll is: %d",ll);
return 0;
}
If I submit the following as an input in one line: 4/5h I get the following output: Value of ll is: 67
So I have 2 questions;
1) where that 67 value came from? (I tried to change the input to something like 1/2t but got the same result)
According to what I have read since there is no integers in the buffer the application should wait until one is available (For example to wait for a new input)
2) When I run my code using debug mode I can see that ll value is 65 but not 67!
By typing non-digit characters in entries like "5h" or "2t" for dd, you're fouling up the read for ll in the second scanf call.
%d tells scanf to skip any leading whitespace, then to read decimal digit characters up to the first non-digit character. If you type a string like "5h" or "2t", that leading digit will be successfully converted and assigned to dd, but the trailing non-digit character will be left in the input stream, and that's fouling up the read for ll. No new value is being read into ll, you're getting whatever indeterminate value it had when the program started up.
Always check the result of scanf (and fscanf and sscanf) - if it's less than the number of inputs you expect, then you have a matching failure (you're not handling some input correctly). If it's EOF, then you have a failure on the input stream itself.
For this particular case, you can work around the problem by checking the result of scanf - if it's 0, then there's a bad character in the stream. Throw it away and try again:
int r;
while ( ( r = scanf( "%d", &ll ) ) != 1 && r != EOF )
getchar();
This will call scanf and try to read a value into ll. We expect scanf to return a 1 on a successful input, so we'll loop while the result of scanf isn't 1 (and isn't EOF, either). If the read isn't successful, we assume there's a non-digit character stuck in the input stream, so we read and discard it with the getchar call.
I'm pretty new in C, I used to work in Python, and I'm trying to see if something that I read is integer number. If not, to read until I manage to entry a number.
I did some research and I found out that the function scanf actually returns 1 if the read is done suitably, and 0 otherwise.
So, I have written this code, and I don't understand why this is an infinite loop, writing "Give an integer" on the console
#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
int a;
int b = 1;
do {
printf("Give an integer\n");
b = scanf("%d", &a);
} while (b == 0);
}
The problem with scanf() is that it stops reading when the first white space is encountered for most specifiers like "%d", so it's left in the input and that's why reading again would cause a problem if you don't discard such white space because it will then return immediately the next time you call it. There is a mandatory white space that is introduced when you press Enter or Return, the '\n' new line character (or line feed).
If you want to read an integer and make sure you did you can try like this
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <ctype.h>
int
main(void)
{
long int value; // You can adapt this to use `int'
// but be careful with overflow
char line[100];
while (fgets(line, sizeof(line), stdin) != NULL) {
char *endptr;
value = strtol(line, &endptr, 10);
if ((isspace(*endptr) != 0) && (endptr != line))
break;
}
fprintf(stdout, "%ld\n", value);
return 0;
}
read strtol()'s manual to understand this code
You could as suggested in the comments, remove the white space characters from the input, but IMHO that is harder and you would still have other problems with scanf(), like handing empty input which is not straight forward.
I don t understand why this is an infinite loop, writing "Give an intiger" on the console
The problem is that scanf() does not consume data that it cannot match against the specified format. It leaves such characters unread in the input stream. Therefore, if you try reading again from the same stream with the same format, without consuming at least one character by some other means, then you can be certain that the input will again not be matched. And again. And again.
To avoid your infinite loop, you need to consume at least one character of the non-matching input after each matching failure. There are many ways you could do that; here's a fairly simple one:
#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
int a;
do {
printf("Give an intiger\n");
if (scanf("%d", &a)) {
// breaks from the loop on a successful match or an error
break;
}
// consume the remainder of one line of input without storing it
if (scanf("%*[^\n]") == EOF) {
break;
}
} while (1);
}
That consumes the whole remainder of the line on which the non-matching input is encountered, which will yield less surprising interactive behavior for some inputs than many alternatives would.
If you've a penchant for writing terse code, or if you don't like to break out of the middle of a loop, then you might write the same thing like this:
#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
int a;
do {
printf("Give an intiger\n");
} while ((scanf("%d", &a) == 0) && (scanf("%*[^\n]") != EOF));
}
Because the && operator short circuits, the second scanf() call will be executed only if the first returns zero, and the loop will exit after the first iteration wherein either the first scanf() call returns nonzero or the second returns EOF (indicating an error).
Just started on K&R and hit:
#include <stdio.h>
/* copy input to output; 1st version */
main()
{
int c;
c = getchar();
while (c != EOF) {
putchar(c);
c = getchar();
}
}
And it just displays what I input, even if it's a string of text.
cacti
cacti
stop repeating what i'm saying
stop repeating what i'm saying
Just like that.
What I don't get is why I can't just instantiate variable c with a string of text and print it the same way. (Ignoring the while loop for the sake the example) Like with:
main()
{
int c;
c = "cacti";
putchar(c);
}
Wherein the output is apparently just 'd'
Here c is only integer which take a character for your case(Although its limits are larger than that).
For first code segment:
getchar() only return a character and you use while loop which take a character from stream and through putchar() it print to console until end of file. You seems to get a line of string and print it but it don't do that way.
In second code segment:
You put a const char* to integer which is not valid(My gcc 4.9.2 does not compile). So it show undefined character (Why print 'd' I don't know, may be compiler issue).
You can do this by:
main()
{
char c[] = "cacti";
puts(c);
}
EDIT
According to getchar() definition:
On success, the character read is returned (promoted to an int value).
The return type is int to accommodate for the special value EOF, which indicates failure.
When you type a single line and press enter then first character read outside of while loop. Than check if it is EOF(End Of File- No more data on the file . You can give EOF by pressing Ctrl+Z in windows and Ctrl+D in linux).
As if it is not encountered EOF, then it entered in while loop and print the singe character(by putchar(c)). After the next line c=getchar() take another character you entered in previous line and check while loop condition while(c!=EOF) being true it entered into loop and print a character. It continues until there found any character to print.
So it makes confuse with puts() which Writes a string in standard output.
Where putchar() Writes a character to the standard output.
According to http://www.cplusplus.com/
Writes the C string pointed by str to the standard output (stdout) and appends a newline character ('\n').
You could use a line-oriented input function to read whole lines. For example:
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void)
{
char line[4096];
while (fgets(line, sizeof(line), stdin) != 0)
fputs(line, stdout);
return 0;
}
For most plausible files, this will read one line at a time into the array of characters, and then write that line out. (If the line length is longer than 4095 characters, then lines will be processed in multiple segments.) If the file contains null bytes, then the material from the null byte to the end of line will be ignored. There are fixes for that — see standard C functions fread() and fwrite(), and POSIX function
getline().
Note that your second example:
int main(void)
{
int c;
c = "cacti";
putchar(c);
}
shouldn't compile without warnings about assigning a character pointer to an integer. When you use putchar() on the result, it probably prints the least significant byte of the address where the string "cacti" is stored. It is pure coincidence that the character printed is d.
The putchar() function only ever prints a single byte (which means a single character in many code sets, but it might only be part of a character in UTF-8).
My objective is to change the delimiter of scanf to "\n".
I tried using scanf("%[^\n]s",sen); and works fine for single inputs.
But when i put the same line inside a for loop for multiple sentences it gives me garbage values.
Does anyone know why?
Here's my code:
char sen[20];
for (i=0;i<2;i++)
{
scanf("%[^\n]s",sen);
printf("%s\n",sen);
}
Consider this (C99) code:
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void)
{
char buffer[256];
while (scanf("%255[^\n]", buffer) == 1)
printf("Found <<%s>>\n", buffer);
int c;
if ((c = getchar()) != EOF)
printf("Failed on character %d (%c)\n", c, c);
return(0);
}
When I run it and type in a string 'absolutely anything with spaces TABTABtabs galore!', it gives me:
Found <<absolutely anything with spaces tabs galore!>>
Failed on character 10 (
)
ASCII (UTF-8) 1010 is newline, of course.
Does this help you understand your problem?
It works in this case (for a single line) but if I want to take multiple lines of input into an array of arrays then it fails. And I don't get how scanf returns a value in your code?
There are reasons why many (most?) experienced C programmers avoid scanf() and fscanf() like the plague; they're too hard to get to work correctly. I'd recommend this alternative, using sscanf(), which does not get the same execration that scanf() and fscanf() do.
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void)
{
char line[256];
char sen[256];
while (fgets(line, sizeof(line), stdin) != 0)
{
if (sscanf(line, "%255[^\n]", sen) != 1)
break;
printf("Found <<%s>>\n", sen);
}
int c;
if ((c = getchar()) != EOF)
printf("Failed on character %d (%c)\n", c, c);
return(0);
}
This reads the line of input (using fgets() which ensures no buffer overflow (pretend that the gets() function, if you've heard of it, melts your computer to a pool of metal and silicon), then uses sscanf() to process that line. This deals with newlines, which are the downfall of the original code.
char sen[20];
for (i=0;i<2;i++)
{
scanf("%[^\n]s",sen);
printf("%s\n",sen);
}
Problems:
You do not check whether scanf() succeeded.
You leave the newline in the buffer on the first iteration; the second iteration generates a return value of 0 because the first character to read is newline, which is the character excluded by the scan set.
The gibberish you see is likely the first line of input, repeated. Indeed, if it were not for the bounded loop, it would not wait for you to type anything more; it would spit out the first line over and over again.
Return value from scanf()
The definition of scanf() (from ISO/IEC 9899:1999) is:
§7.19.6.4 The scanf function
Synopsis
#include <stdio.h>
int scanf(const char * restrict format, ...);
Description
2 The scanf function is equivalent to fscanf with the argument stdin interposed
before the arguments to scanf.
Returns
3 The scanf function returns the value of the macro EOF if an input failure occurs before
any conversion. Otherwise, the scanf function returns the number of input items
assigned, which can be fewer than provided for, or even zero, in the event of an early
matching failure.
Note that when the loop in my first program exits, it is because scanf() returned 0, not EOF.
%[^\n] leaves the newline in the buffer. %[^\n]%*c eats the newline character.
In any case, %[^\n] can read any number of characters and cause buffer overflow or worse.
I use the format string %*[^\n]%*c to gobble the remainder of a line of input from a file. For example, one can read a number and discard the remainder of the line by %d%*[^\n]%*c. This is useful if there is a comment or label following the number, or other data that is not needed.
char sen[20];
for (i=0;i<2;i++)
{
scanf("%[^\n]s",sen);
printf("%s\n",sen);
getchar();
}
Hope this helps ... actually "\n" remains in stream input buffer... Ee need to flush it out before scanf is invoked again
I know I am late, but I ran into same problem after testing C after a long time.
The problem here is the new line is considered as input for next iteration.
So, here is my solution, use getchar() to discard the newline the input stream:
char s[10][25];
int i;
for(i = 0; i < 10; i++){
printf("Enter string: ");
scanf("%s", s[i]);
getchar();
}
Hope it helps :)
While using scanf("%[^\n]", sen) in a loop, the problem that occurs is that the \n stays within the input buffer and is not flushed. As a result next time, when the same input syntax is used, it reads the \n and considers it as a null input. A simple but effective solution to address this problem is to use:
char sen[20];
for (i=0;i<2;i++)
{
scanf("%[^\n]%*c",sen);
printf("%s\n",sen);
}
%*c gets rid of the \n character in the input buffer.
I started learning C programming and in this program I am trying to get user input and then a line at a time and decide if it contains non-int characters. I've been trying this method:
scanf("%d", &n);
if (isalpha(n))
{
i = -1;
}
I googled a bit and learned the function isalpha is good way to do it. However, I'm getting a segmentation fault every time I test the fragment above with non-int characters (letters for example). Any suggestion would be appreciated.
The %d format specifier forces scanf() to only accept strings of digits. Given anything else, it will fail and leave n unfilled (and assuming you didn't initialize n before, it will be filled with garbage).
The crux of the problem is that isalpha() expects a value between 0 and 255, and has an assertion to enforce it. At least on my VC++ compiler, it causes a crash with an access violation when given an invalid value (in non-debug mode).
To solve this you just have to switch to a %c format specifier. Converting n to a char would also be advisable as that makes your intent of reading a single character clearer.
EDIT: Given your clarifications in the comments, you can leave everything as is and simply check the return value of scanf() instead of going the isalpha() route. It returns the number of values read successfully, so when it encounters a non-integer or end of file, it will return 0. E.g.:
int main() {
int n;
while (scanf("%d", &n)) {
printf("Got int: %d\n", n);
}
}
I have no idea why you're getting a seg-fault. I'd have to see more of your program.
But using "%d" for scanf will only accept integer values and you'll get "0" for n that isn't an integer and therefore isalpha(n) will always be false and i will never be set to -1.
Perhaps you aren't initializing i and therefore it is never set. If you are referencing it later, that's probably the source of your seg-fault.
Use scanf("%c", &n), like this:
int main(char** argc, int argv) {
char n = 0;
int i = 0;
scanf("%c", &n);
if (isalpha(n)) {
i = -1;
}
printf("you typed %c, i=%d", n, i);
}
Make sure you have a character buffer to store the value in. Scan it as a string, and then use isalpha():
char buffer[32];
sscanf("%32s", buffer);
// loop and check characters...
if(isalpha(buffer[i])) ....
Note the use of %32s, this is to prevent buffer overflows (32 == size of buffer)
Given that n is an integer, we can diagnose that you are reading a value into n which is not in the range 0..255 plus EOF (normally -1), so that the code for isalpha(n) is doing something like:
(_magic_array[n]&WEIRD_BITMASK)
and the value of n is causing it to access memory out of control, hence the segmentation fault.
Since scanf():
Returns the number of successful conversions, and
Stops when there is a non-integer character (not a digit or white space or sign) in the input stream,
you can use:
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void)
{
char n = 0;
while (scanf("%c", &n) == 1)
printf("you typed %d\n", n);
return 0;
}