Finding the smallest element in multidimensional array - c

Question

Im asking for help once again. This time I found myself in the midst of a task which I found on the internet and I cant find a good solution. At first I thought of bubble sort, but I didnt seem to find a way to use it with multidimensional array.
The task asks to find 3 smallest elements which arent repeating on the second array.
So far my code looks like this, though Ive removed a lot of it... Since it was a very wrong and futile aproach.
Everything was written in C.
Thanks for the help.
3
1 2 3
3 3 3
3 3 3
5 4 6
6 4 5
4 5 6
This is the given information for the file
#include stdio.h
#include stdlib.h
int main()
{
FILE *fptr;
fptr = fopen("Duomenys.txt", "r");
int i, j;
int k, l;
int bubbleTmp;
fscanf(fptr, "%d ", &k);
l = k;
int a[k][k];
int b[k][k];
for(i = 0; i < k; i++)
{
for(j = 0; j < l; j++)
{
fscanf(fptr,"%d ",&a[i][j]);
printf("%d ", a[i][j]);
}
printf("\n");
}
printf("\n\n\n");
for(i = 0; i < k; i++)
{
for(j = 0; j < l; j++)
{
fscanf(fptr,"%d ",&b[i][j]);
printf("%d ", b[i][j]);
}
printf("\n");
}
// Bubble Sort
for(i = 0; i < k; i++)
{
for(j = 0; j < l; j++)
{
if(a[i][j] > a[i][j+1])
{
}
}
}
fclose(fptr);
return 0;
}

Answer 1

To find the minimum and its position in the array:
int min = a[0][0], i_min = 0, j_min = 0;
for(i = 0; i < k; i++)
{
for(j = 0; j < l; j++)
{
if(a[i][j] < min)
{
min = a[i][j];
i_min = i;
j_min = j;
}
}
}
After the first try, you repeat it two more times, avoiding the minimums alrerady found. The positions of each minimums are known.

Answer 2

Previously, it was a suggestion.
Now, here is the solution:
//----------------------------------------------------------------------------
#include <iostream>
#include <iomanip>
#include <ctime>
//----------------------------------------------------------------------------
int **CreateArray (int N, int M)
{
int **arr = new int*[N];
for (int i = 0; i<N; i++)
arr[i] = new int [M];
for (int i = 0; i<N; i++)
for (int j = 0; j<M; j++)
arr[i][j] = rand()%10 - rand()%10;
return arr;
}
void DestroyArray (int **arr, int N)
{
for (int i = 0; i<N; i++)
delete [] arr[i];
delete [] arr;
}
void PrintArray (int **arr, int N, int M)
{
for (int i = 0; i<N; i++)
{
for (int j = 0; j<M; j++)
std::cout << std::setw(7) << arr[i][j];
std::cout << "\n";
}
std::cout << "\n";
}
//----------------------------------------------------------------------------
typedef struct _min
{
int value;
int i;
int j;
} TMin;
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------
void FindMin (int **arr, int N, int M, TMin **mins, int min_count)
{
mins[min_count]->value = arr[0][0];
mins[min_count]->i = 0;
mins[min_count]->j = 0;
for (int i = 0; i<N; i++)
for (int j = 0; j<M; j++)
{
if (arr[i][j] < mins[min_count]->value)
{
bool prev = false;
for (int k = 0; k<min_count; k++)
if (i == mins[k]->i && j == mins[k]->j)
{
prev = true;
break;
}
if (!prev)
{
mins[min_count]->value = arr[i][j];
mins[min_count]->i = i;
mins[min_count]->j = j;
}
}
}
}
//----------------------------------------------------------------------------
int main()
{
//array creation, filling, printing
srand ((unsigned int)time (NULL));
int N = 6, M = 7;
int **arr = CreateArray (N, M);
PrintArray (arr, N, M);
//container for 3 minimums
TMin **mins = new TMin*[3];
for (int i = 0; i<3; i++)
mins[i] = new TMin;
//let us find them
int min_count = -1;
while (++min_count < 3)
FindMin (arr, N, M, mins, min_count);
//result
for (int i = 0; i<3; i++)
std::cout << "arr[" << mins[i]->i << "][" <<mins[i]->j << "] = " << mins[i]->value << "\n";
//cleaning memory
for (int i = 0; i<3; i++)
delete [] mins[i];
delete [] mins;
DestroyArray (arr, N);
std::cin.sync();
std::cin.get();
return 0;
}
//-----------------------------------------------------------------------------