Why am I getting garbage value after displaying the data - c

Question

I am getting garbage value when I display the records.
I have to create a database of students in C using array of structures and without pointers.
Is there any other way of doing this?
How to use array of structures?
#include <stdio.h>
struct student {
char first_name[10],last_name[10];
int roll;
char address[20];
float marks;
};
void accept(struct student);
void display(struct student);
void main() {
struct student S[10];
int n, i;
printf("Enter the number of records to enter : ");
scanf("%d", &n);
for (i = 0; i < n; i++) {
accept(S[i]);
}
for (i = 0; i < n; i++) {
display(S[i]);
}
}
void accept(struct student S) {
scanf("%s", S.first_name);
scanf("%s", S.last_name);
scanf("%d", &S.roll);
scanf("%s", S.address);
scanf("%f", &S.marks);
}
void display(struct student S) {
printf("\n%s", S.first_name);
printf("\n%s", S.last_name);
printf("\n%d", S.roll);
printf("\n%s", S.address);
}

Answer 1

Everything in C is pass-by-value. Which means you are modifying variable copy in stack frame, while real variable passed as parameter remains untouched.
You have to pass an pointer to variable which you want to modify in function.
// Function declaration
void accept(struct student *);
// Call
accept(&S[i]);
// Usage in function via dereference operator
scanf("%s",S->first_name);
If you would like to enter unknown amount of records, you should use VLA (since c99) or dynamically allocate structures.
VLA
scanf("%d",&n);
struct student S[n];
Dynamic callocation
scanf("%d",&n);
struct student * S = malloc(sizeof(struct student) * n);
Because in your case, if user input more that 9 records you are touching outside of bounds, which has undefined behavior.

Answer 2

There are multiple issues in your code:
The standard prototype for main without arguments is int main(void)
You should allocate the array dynamically with calloc.
you should pass structure pointers to the accept and display functions instead of passing structures by value. Passing the destination structure by value is incorrect as the accept function cannot modify the structure in the main function, which remains uninitialized and causes garbage to be displayed. Note that it is actually undefined behavior to access uninitialized data so the program could behave in even worse ways.
You should provide scanf() with the maximum number of arguments to store into character arrays to avoid potential buffer overflows.
you should verify the return values of scanf() to avoid undefined behavior on invalid input.
you could use the %[^\n] scan set to allow embedded spaces in the address field.
Here is a modified version:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
struct student {
char first_name[10], last_name[10];
int roll;
char address[20];
float marks;
};
void accept(struct student *sp);
void display(const struct student *sp);
int main(void) {
struct student *S;
int n, i, j;
printf("Enter the number of records to enter : ");
if (scanf("%d", &n) != 1)
return 1;
S = calloc(sizeof(*S), n);
if (S == NULL) {
return 1;
}
for (i = 0; i < n; i++) {
accept(&S[i]);
}
for (i = 0; i < n; i++) {
display(&S[i]);
}
free(S);
return 0;
}
void accept(struct student *sp) {
if (scanf("%9s%9s&d %19[^\n]%f",
sp->first_name, sp->last_name, &sp->roll,
sp->address, &sp->marks) != 5) {
printf("missing input\n");
exit(1);
}
}
void display(const struct student *sp) {
printf("%s\n", sp->first_name);
printf("%s\n", sp->last_name);
printf("%d\n", sp->roll);
printf("%s\n", sp->address);
printf("%f\n", sp->marks);
printf("\n");
}