About array with variable size in C - c

I am trying to solve the following problem:
Assume we have a 8 times 8 grid (of course it could be a larger grid).
We label all outer boundary points of the square as 'n', and points adjacent to them as 't', and all other points are 'f'.
I want to program a process that transfers all points to be 'n' by the following rule (I need to follow this rule, because this problem is a part of a bigger problem while the rest part is irrelevant to my question here):
I need to put all 't' points in order, and transfer the first element to be 'n'. Then I need to delete the first element which has been changed to 'n', and move the last element to the first location. Also, I need to relabel all 'f' points that are adjacent to the changed point as 't' and put them to the end of the sequence of 't' points. I need to continue this process until there is no 't' or 'f'.
To do this I used array with variable size, and my code is as the following:
int i,j;
char c[n+1][n+1];
int count=0;
int newi[4];
int newj[4];
int ind;
//initialization
for(i=0; i<n+1;i++){
for(j=0;j<n+1;j++){
if(i==0||j==0||i==n||j==n){
c[i][j]='n'; //tagged as newly known
}
else if(i==1||j==1||i==n-1||j==n-1){
c[i][j]='t'; //trial points
}
else{
c[i][j]='f'; //far away points
}
}
}
for(i=0; i<n+1;i++){
for(j=0;j<n+1;j++){
if(c[i][j]=='t'){
count=count+1; //count is number of 't'
}
}
}
int ri[count]; //array that stores the row index of trial points;
int ci[count]; //array that stores the column index of trial points;
int k=0;
for(i=0; i<n+1;i++){
for(j=0;j<n+1;j++){
if(c[i][j]=='t'){
ri[k]=i;
ci[k]=j;
k=k+1;
}
}
}
while(count>0){
int num=0;
i=ri[0];
j=ci[0];
c[i][j]='n';
ri[0]=ri[count-1];
ci[0]=ci[count-1];
count--;
int newcount=0;
if(c[i-1][j]=='f'){
c[i-1][j]='t';
newcount++;
newi[newcount-1]=i-1;
newj[newcount-1]=j;
}
if(c[i+1][j]=='f'){
c[i+1][j]='t';
newcount++;
newi[newcount-1]=i+1;
newj[newcount-1]=j;
}
if(c[i][j-1]=='f'){
c[i][j-1]='t';
newcount++;
newi[newcount-1]=i;
newj[newcount-1]=j-1;
}
if(c[i][j+1]=='f'){
c[i][j+1]='t';
newcount++;
newi[newcount-1]=i;
newj[newcount-1]=j+1;
}
count=count+newcount;
for(ind=count-newcount;ind<count;ind++)/////
{
ri[ind]=newi[ind-count+newcount];
ci[ind]=newj[ind-count+newcount];
}
}
It works fine for several loops at the beginning. However, after my careful check, then in a loop the code
for(ind=count-newcount;ind<count;ind++)/////
{
ri[ind]=newi[ind-count+newcount];
ci[ind]=newj[ind-count+newcount];
}
not only add new elements to the end of index arrays 'ri' and 'ci', but also changed the first element of 'ri', and then mess up everything.
My question is that how this happens. Is it a problem caused by using array with variable length? Should I avoid using arrays with variable length?

It seems that you misinterpret the term VLA. It doesn't means that the size of the array may vary, but that you can dynamically decide what is the size of the array (but the size is fixed once).
You are adding more element to ri and ci without having reallocate them...
I suggest you to, first use dynamic allocation:
int *ri = calloc(sizeof(int),count); //array that stores the row index of trial points;
if (ri==NULL) { /* error */ }
int *ci = calloc(sizeof(int),count);
if (ci==NULL) { /* error */ }
then add two lines just before your problematic loop as:
int *ri2 = realloc(ri,count*sizeof(int));
if (ri2==NULL) { /* error */ }
ri = ri2;
int *ci2 = realloc(ci,count*sizeof(int));
if (ci2==NULL) { /* error */ }
ci = ci2;
In between these portion of code, count may change!
--- EDIT ---
You need to also take care about Alex's answer...

Yes, that is what is causing the problem. While you still have not said what your n is, so the problem described in the other poster's answer might also be applicable; however, there are also problems within the code you posted.
When you say statements like
c[i][j+1]='t';
In case i == n, then
c[i][j+1] = c[i][n+1] = c[i+1][0]
This is because your array is n+1 x n+1, so any time you access the n+1-st entry, it spills over into the next index.
If you check whether i == n before attempting to set the value, then you would avoid this error.

Related

code with array subscript references and pointer dereferencing compiles and runs but the results are unexpected

Why this program can compiling and run but the result is out of my expectation?`
#include<stdio.h>
int main(void)
{
char *message="hello";
for(int i=0;*message!='\0';i++)
{
printf("%c",message[i]);
}
return 0;
}
But this one can meet my expection.(print "hello" rightly)
int main(void)
{
char *message="hello";
for(int i=0;*message!='\0';i++)
{
printf("%c",*message++);
}
return 0;
}
In the C language,arr[i] is equal to *arr.But in the cases I show above,the result is totally different,when I run them in the devc++.Due to my limited knowledge ,I can't understand this.
Because I'm a student who is going to be a freshman after this summer vacation and only have some konwledge about C language,please answer my question in a more acceptable way. Thanks in advance!
***sorry ,the problem is caused because of my carelessness.I have learned my mistake.
In the C language, arr[i] is equal to *arr....
No, *arr is equal to arr[0].
In your first example, you type message++ which make et points on the next character.
So, the first code can be corrected that way:
for(int i=0; message[i]!='\0'; i++)
{
printf("%c",message[i]);
}
And the second can be simplified: (you don't need i):
for( ;*message!='\0'; )
{
printf("%c",*message++);
}
In the first code, the pointer message isn't changed and what the pointer message points at is also not changed, so the condition *message!='\0' is always true (doing 'h'!='\0').
Therefore, i will continuously be incremented and become so large that message[i] goes out of a region where access is allowed.
The condition should be message[i]!='\0' to avoid this error.
If you want to stick to use * operator for some reason, it should be *(message+i)!='\0'.
I rewrite the program with a slightly different appearance
#include<stdio.h>
int main(void)
{
char *message="hello";
for(int i=0; 'h'!='\0';i++) // notice the change here
{
printf("%c",message[i]);
}
return 0;
}
You see the problem now?
*message is always h, it's not changing with the loop iteration. The comparison is meaningless here, it does not terminate the loop as expected.
You need to ensure that you change the pointer to the next address every time you iterate, to ensure you are checking the value of the next element.
You can make use of the index value, like
for(int i=0; * (message + i) !='\0';i++)

Why is my for loop increasing the size of my array in C?

I'm trying to make a binary number calculator in c and I'm running into issues of my for loops doubling the size of my second array and adding the first array onto the end. I'm really confused because I thought you couldn't increase the size after already declaring it. It is happening in my equation reading function as well but in this ones complement function it's a bit simpler to see. Any ideas of how to fix this?the codethe output
welcome to stack-overflow. From next time please use inline code editor to put your code instead of images. I have taken effort put your code in the answer itself to explain the problem. Please consider this as courtesy. Its very unusual to do it. But as you are a new member, I'm doing it.
// Cole carson's original code from image:
char * onescomp(char x[16], char y[16]){
int i;
for(i=0;i<=15;i++){
if(x[i] == '0'){
y[i] = '1';
continue;
}
else if(x[i] == '1'){
y[i] = '0';
continue;
}
}
return y;
}
int main()
{
char b3n[16]={'0','0','0','0','0','0','0','0','0','0','0','0','0','0','0'};
char cb3n[16];
puts(b3n);
onescomp(b3n,cb3n);
puts(cb3n);
return 0;
}
Answer:
You don't need continue; in if-else blocks.
You need to add '\0' in the last cell of cb3n array. so puts() knows when string ends & stop printing.
so to quickly fix this issue you can create array with extra cell and assign all values as '\0'. so after copying fifteen 1's there will be '\0' in the end. I think in your case those extra zeros being printed might be garbage values. It looks like array is doubling but it isn't, its just printing values beyond allocated memory because '\0' has not been provided.
//Quick fix
int main()
{
char b3n[16]={'0','0','0','0','0','0','0','0','0','0','0','0','0','0','0'};
char cb3n[17]={'\0'}; // <--- quick fix
puts(b3n);
onescomp(b3n,cb3n);
puts(cb3n);
return 0;
}

Issue about Binary search algorithm in c

I am confused in understating the behavior of the code while searching for an element which does not exist in the array.
The result of the element index i am looking for is always zero while declaring it as int index;.
The result of the element index i am looking for is random number while declaring it as size_t index;
what is the difference between declaring the variable index as int index; andsize_t;in the code below.
The code
#include <stdio.h>
#define SIZE 5
int main(void)
{
int numbers[SIZE]={1,2,3,4,5};
int search =0; // This variable define the required number i am searching for
int start = 0 ;
int end = SIZE-1 ;
size_t index;
while (start <= end)
{
int middle = (start+end)/2;
if (search == numbers[middle])
{
index = middle;
}
if (search > numbers[middle])
{
start = middle+1 ;
}
else
{
end= middle-1 ;
}
}
printf("The index of the element is %d",index);
return 0;
}
The basic problem is that index is not initialized and that it never gets assigned when you don't find what you are searching for. Since the printf statement accesses an uninitialized variable in that case, your code have undefined behavior, i.e. anything may happen - including print of all sorts of numbers.
The result of the element index i am looking for is always zero while declaring it as int index;
That is "just by luck"
The result of the element index i am looking for is random number while declaring it as size_t index;
That is also "just by luck"
Here are a couple of action items you can take to improve your code:
Since this array is statically defined there is no need to include the SIZE define inside the []. Declare it like this int numbers[]={1,2,3,4,5}; instead of this int numbers[SIZE]={1,2,3,4,5};. Let the compiler do the math for you.
Initialize index to some value (i.e. index = 0;). this is the main cause of the problem and it is introducing undefined behavior to the program.
Change the type of size_t index to int index every variable that was declared in the program is an int and the program is treating index as an int. So it might as well be an int to avoid confusion.
Make this an else if clause instead of just an if:
else if (search > numbers[middle])
{
start = middle+1 ;
}
Add another case to have the program fail gracefully when the value to be searched is missing from the data set. Such as, printf("Data not found: %d", search);
The algorithm still isn't 100% and has some flaws but I will leave this up to you to figure out. I hope this info helps!
Best Regards!
The problem is that , the value of indexis not initialized.
initializing the variable to 0 does not solve your problem.
Because you are using index to return the position of the array element.
By initializing the index = 0 will provide he same result for the elements not present in the array as well as the for the first element to the of the array .
The better way is to initialize as size_t index = -1;
So that the result for the elements not present in the array would b -1.
Also check for the access specifier used in the printf statement, for size_t datatype. It can be ,
printf("The index of the element is %ld",index);
You are not using correct specifier for size_t, it's not %d.
Try to use %zd or %ld and it'll work fine.
Furthermore, add this after the while loop so that it doesn't show weird value of index when the element is not present in the array.
if(start>end) {
printf("That number is not present in the array");
return 0;
}
And move the line printf("The index of the element is %d",index); under the condition if (search == numbers[middle]). So that you don't get "this number is not present" even if it is present in the array.
For corrected version of your code see https://code.hackerearth.com/80043dg?key=7b325b26aec0f5425b76cc3efbdc93cf

C how do I check if an array is full?

I have an array: array[3][3]
I will let the user input data into the array as long as it is not full. As soon as the array gets full I want to stop the user from inserting more data into it.
C has no array bounds check. You have to do it yourself. Use a variable to keep track of how many items you have inserted, and stop when your counter is equal to the array size.
You cannot check if "array is full". To do what u want to do, keep track of index while adding elements to array.
You need to keep track of the data inserted by a user. When your counter reaches the size of the array, the array is full. :D There is not other way in C to achieve this result as it does not provide any means of verifying how many elements are in the array.
Introduce a variable for counting the number of cells filled. You adjust this variable whenever you add/remove data to your array. Then, in order to check if your array is full, just check if this variable is equal to the total number of cells in your array.
The most simple way in my opinion is to dynamically allocate memory using calloc(), where you can initialise the array elements to, for example, zeros. The you can check if the array is full by checking, if the last element in the array is still zero or not. Of course, if the last element is still zero, then the array is not full.
First of all this is not an array but a matrix (aka array of array). you already know that the matrix has dimensions 3x3 and then you could do something like this:
int x, y;
int array[3][3];
for (x = 0; x<2; x++)
{
for (y = 0; y<2; y++)
{
//I assume that it is an array of int
printf("Insert number at %d - %d" ,x,y);
scanf("%d" ,&array[x][y]);
}
}
Now the user can only insert 3*3=9 values.
There are no way to array bound check in C, However with better coding practice we check whether array is full.
For example, consider in your array a[3][3] you don't want to have some particular value. That value could be anything! 0xFF or 0 or anything which is in the integer range! and you have to make sure that value is never given as the input to the array, and then you can verify whether your array a[3][3] is full!
/*part of coed in main*/
/*here initialize the array with 0, assuming that 0 will never be a part of array a[3][3]*/
for(i=0; i<3; i++)
{
for(j=0;j<3;j++)
{
a[i][j] = 0; // assuming that 0 will never be a part of array a[3][3]
}
}
while(CheckArray(**a)!=0)
{
printf("give array input:\n")
scanf("%d", &a[row][column]); //writing to empty cell of an array
}
//CheckArray code
int CheckArray(int a[][])
{
for(i=0; i<3; i++)
{
for(j=0;j<3;j++)
{
if(a[i][j] == 0) // assuming that 0 will never be a part of array a[3][3]
{
row = i; // row and column must be global variables in this example!
column = j; // row and column must be global variables in this example!
return 1;
}
else
{
// no need to do anything here
}
}
}
//if code reaches here then array is full!
printf("Array is full.\n");
return 0;
}
You can still optimize the above code! this is just one way of checking whether array is full with better coding practice!
If possible, you could initialize all elements in the array to a certain value that your program would otherwise consider "illegal" or "invalid". E.g. an array of positive numbers can be initialized to be all -1's. Or an array of chars can be initialized to be all NULL characters.
Then, just look at the last element if it is set to the default value.
measurement = sizeof(myarray) / sizeof(element); //or just a constant
while(myarray[measurement-1] == defaultvalue){
//insert code here...
}
Encapsulate the behavior into a struct with getter/setter functions that check for the max length of the desired vector:
typedef varvector
varvector;
struct varvector {
int length;
void* vector;
};
varvector* varvector_create(int length) {
varvector* container = malloc(sizeof(varvector));
void* vector = malloc(length);
if(container && vector) {
container->vector = vector;
}
return(container);
}
void varvector_destroy(varvector* container) {
free(container.vector);
free(container);
}
varvector_get(varvector* container, int position) {
if(position < container.length) {
return(container->vector[position]);
}
}
varvector_set(varvector* container, int position, char value) {
if(position < container.length) {
container->vector[position] = value
}
}
Object Oriented Programming is a design pattern which happens to have syntactic support in some languages and happens to not have syntactic support in C.
This does not mean that you cannot use this design pattern in your work, it just means you have to either use a library that already provides this for you (glib, ooc) or if you only need a small subset of these features, write your own basic functions.
You can assume that the last element of an array has id=0.
Then in function add check if there is an element with id=0.
int add(char *source, char *target, int size) {
int index = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < size; i++) {
if (target[i].id == 0) {
index = i;
break;
}
}
if (index >= 0 && index < size) {
if (index < size - 1) target[index + 1].id = 0;
// check that element with id=0 is the last in the array
//write code to add your element here
return index;
}
}

Counting the number of elements in an array - C

I am trying to count the number of elements in an array using C. I tried out the following code. But it just returns 83 every time I run the program. What I mean by to count the number of elements is that I need to know the number of elements that we have entered and not the size of the array.
#include<stdio.h>
#include<stdlib.h>
main(){
int a[100], j = 0, i;
a[0] = '0';
a[1] = '1';
a[2] = '2';
a[3] = '3';
a[4] = '4';
a[5] = '5';
for(i=0; i<100; i++){
if(a[i] == '\0'){
}
else
j = j + 1;
}
printf("%d", j);
system("pause");
}
Arrays in C are a fixed size. They do not expand. Your array has two entries; writing to array[2], array[3], etc. invokes undefined behaviour. In other words, it's invalid code.
If you want to be able to insert an arbitrary number of elements, you will need to use dynamically-allocated memory, manually track how many elements you've inserted, and use realloc when you need to resize.
Since the OP amended his code, here is a more correct reply:
This code works 'by chance', since you didn't initialize the array previously.
It's just 'luck', that somewhere in there, the value 0 comes up.
The declaration of an array does NOT zero it.
Use:
memset(a, 0, 100);
For that. That way, the first 'not overwritten' byte will return '0'.
Reference: http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/clibrary/cstring/memset/
Alternatively, you have to set the 'delimited' manually by adding a[x] = 0;
Now, I know you specifically asked for a 'C' solution, but if you would like to consider using a C++-Compiler, I suggest looking at the stl of C++.
Here's a link to get you started: http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/stl/list/
It's initialized as:
list<char>List;
List.push_back(1);
List.push_back(2);
List.push_back('a');
int j = List.size(); //Returns '3'
do this instead:
main(){
int a[100] = {0};
int j = 0;
int i = 0;
// other stuff
Update based on new code:
In general, you will need a way to identify the end of your array in order to do a correct count. For strings the '\0' is used generally. For other data types you have to come up with your own value to check.
For your specific code example above:
You need to insert a \0 yourself into your array in the last position so that your count will work. (When you create a string like "hello", the '\0' gets automatically put in for you at the end of the string, but not if you create a string character by character).
Alternatively, check for the character '5' to find the end of your current array of characters.
Also, you should break out of the loop once you found the last character, otherwise you are going past the end of the array and will most likely crash (again, if you don't it's sheer luck). I.e., something like:
if(a[i] == '\0'){
break;
}
will work if you do:
a[6] = '\0';
before.
Since C doesn't check array bounds, it might appear that with your current code you seemingly get away with this, but it's sheer luck that the program doesn't crash and may change from run to run. In other words, this is undefined behavior.
Finally, you can of course also use strlen() if you are dealing with strings.

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