Extreme sum values calculated inside a structure - c

Question

While I was learning to code in C about structure and pointers, I tried to make a program that calculate grades of students.
I thought it would work from my previous experiences for such calculation without pointers and structure. But with those, it gave me wild results in the program.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
/*
The program will scan year, name, score of three different subjects,
and calculate the sum and the average.
Three different people (using array) will be taken into account.
*/
struct grade {
int year;
char name[20];
int score[3];
int total;
float avg;
};
void main() {
struct grade p[3];
char str = 'c';
char *pstr = NULL;
int i, j;
pstr = &str;
for (j = 0; j < 3; j++) {
printf("Year of Admission: ");
scanf("%d", &p[j].year);
printf("Name of the Student: ");
scanf("%s", pstr);
strcpy(p[j].name, pstr);
for (i = 0; i < 3; i++) {
printf("The score for Subject %d: ", i + 1);
scanf("%d", &p[j].score[i]);
p[j].total += p[j].score[i];
}
p[j].avg = p[j].total / 3.0;
}
for (j = 0; j < 3; j++) {
printf("%s's\n", p[j].name);
printf("Total score: %d\n", p[j].total);
printf("Average: %.2f\n", p[j].avg);
}
}
I could have written each of three different subjects as one variable but for an extra "challenge", I made an array inside the structure.
int score[3];
However, the program only prints out extremely small number -89541694... for both totals and averages.
I assume that this particular line inside a for-loop is a problem.
scanf("%d", &p[j].score[i]);
But I could not figure out why. I am really new to pointers and still learning them.
I hope for your generous teaching and explanations.
Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

Local variables are not initialized with 0, so you just need to zero it before calculating total:
p[j].total = 0;
before
for (i = 0; i < 3; i++) {
printf("The score for Subject %d: ", i + 1);
scanf("%d", &p[j].score[i]);
p[j].total += p[j].score[i];
}

Answer 2

The variable pstr points to a single char. A string in C needs to be at least two characters for a single-character string: The actual character, and the null terminator.
When you use e.g. scanf to read a string, the function will write at least two bytes to the memory pointed to by pstr. But since it only points to a single byte you will write out of bounds and that leads to undefined behavior.
If you want to be able to read more than a single character you need to have more space allocated for the string. And you need to limit scanf so it will not write out of bounds.
For example
char pstr[40]; // Allows for strings up to 39 character, plus terminator
// ...
scanf("%39s", pstr); // Read at most 39 characters from standard input, and write to pstr
Another problem is that local variables are not automatically initialized, their values will be indeterminate.
That means the contents of the array p is unknown and seemingly random.
When you do
p[j].total += p[j].score[i];
you use the seemingly random value of p[j].total to calculate another seemingly random number.
To initialize all structures and all their members to "zero" in the array, do e.g.
struct grad p[3] = { 0 };

Answer 3

Instead of making pstr a pointer you might wanted to do somehting like this
char pstr[30];
And accordingly you will scanf the string using scanf("%29s",pstr); and check it's return value.
To describe the problem a bit - you had a pointer pointing to a char which is not capable of holding an input characters and the corresponding \0 (nul terminating character). As a result this gives rise to undefined behavior. And then using it in strcpy is also an illegal code. (Undefined behavior).
Here the solution I gave simply declared an array of 30 characters and we limited the string input using scanf upto 29 characters because we need to store the terminating null.
Showing you atleast a bit of code to make you understand how to write these codes:-
if( scanf("%29s",pstr)!= 1){
fprintf(stderrm"Error in input");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
Another problem is initialize the variables - here you used p[j].total += p[j].score[i]; What is the value of p[j].total initially. It contains garbage value. In the loop make p[j].total = 0; first. That will give you the correct result.
Note: The wild results are the garbage value resulted from addition of some garbage value with p[j].score[i].
Also note that without making the changes that I said if you only change the initialization thing then also code is not guranteed to work. undefined behavior is undefined behavior - cases may arise which will simply crash the program making you wonder where you went wrong.
Illustration code may help you:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
/*
The program will scan year, name, score of three different subjects,
and calculate the sum and the average.
Three different people (using array) will be taken into account.
*/
struct grade {
int year;
char name[20];
int score[3];
int total;
float avg;
};
int main(void) {
struct grade p[3];
char pstr[20];
int i, j;
for (j = 0; j < 3; j++) {
printf("Year of Admission: ");
if(scanf("%d", &p[j].year)!=1){
fprintf(stderr, "%s\n", "Error in input");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
printf("Name of the Student: ");
if(scanf("%19s", pstr)!=1){
fprintf(stderr, "%s\n", "Error in input");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
strcpy(p[j].name, pstr);
p[j].total = 0;
for (i = 0; i < 3; i++) {
printf("The score for Subject %d: ", i + 1);
if(scanf("%d", &p[j].score[i])!=1){
fprintf(stderr, "%s\n", "Error in input");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
if(p[j].score < 0){
fprintf(stderr, "%s\n", "Error in input");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
p[j].total += p[j].score[i];
}
p[j].avg = p[j].total / 3.0;
}
for (j = 0; j < 3; j++) {
printf("%s's\n", p[j].name);
printf("Total score: %d\n", p[j].total);
printf("Average: %.2f\n", p[j].avg);
}
return 0;
}
In fact instead of using the pstr just input the names directly in the structure variable instance itself. No need to use a temporary variable.