scanf() to iterate through an unknown quantity of integers - c

Question

So I'm trying to find the sum of an unknown amount of user-input numbers. Here's my code
int main()
{
int tmp1 = 1;
int tmp2 = 1;
int total = 0;
printf("Enter numbers for a sum: ");
tmp2 = scanf(" %d", &tmp1);
while(tmp2 > 0){
total+=tmp1;
tmp2 = scanf(" %d", &tmp1);
}
printf("total is %d", total);
return 0;
}
It gets stuck in an endless loop, and then once i hit ctrl-c to end it, it prints the correct sum. So what I'm doing wrong is how will i know when it's done scanning all the integers, and for the loop to end; since i'm not doing it correctly now

Answer 1

Decided to make it stop via ctrl d, and its acceptable. thanks

Answer 2

In your question, it is not clear how you expect your programme to understand that there won't be anymore numbers to input. Shall it be through a specific character? Or shall it just get a line of space-separated numbers and respond with a sum?
From your code, my most sensible guess is: You want it to understand that there won't be any more numbers to add, whenever it encounters a non-digital character. My guess is so, because this is almost exactly what your code does by checking the return value from scanf.
First of all, you have to change that tmp inside your loop into tmp1 because there isn't such a variable as tmp declared. edit: well, never mind
Then try running your programme, putting in any amount of white-space (space, tab or new-line) separated numbers, and then any non-digital character you like. May be a T for example, or ThoAppelsin, it won't matter. Programme won't get beyond the first character, in fact, not even beyond the first character. After that, you shall see that the numbers have been properly added together.
Since you're confused about a non-existent infinite-loop, my second guess is that you might be actually hoping it to get a single line of space-delimited numbers, and have the sum printed; and misinterpret your programme as "in infinite loop" while it merely expects further input from you, just like it does at the very beginning.
You won't get a 0 from non-redirected scanf("%d", &var);, unless you feed it with something that doesn't match to the format string to cause abnormal termination. If there's nothing left in the input stream to consume, it will just wait for more input. But say you give an 'a' to it, then all it can do is to give up and return zero, because it couldn't do a single assignment.
If you really are hoping to have a single line of numbers, then the minimal change I could offer would be something like this:
int main(void)
{
int tmp1 = 1;
char tmp2 = 0;
int total = 0;
printf("Enter numbers for a sum: ");
scanf("%d%c", &tmp1, &tmp2);
while(tmp2 == ' '){
total+=tmp1;
scanf("%d%c", &tmp1, &tmp2);
}
printf("total is %d", total);
return 0;
}
Of course, this approach has many vulnerabilities. However, if user is to input strictly a sequence like:
3 66 2 10 6
// mind the new-line
It will work fine. But if I'm allowed to change more than minimal, this is how I would do it:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <ctype.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main(void)
{
int LastNumber = 0;
int UpcomingCharacter = 0;
int Total = 0;
printf("Enter numbers for a sum: ");
while(scanf("%d%*[ \t]", &LastNumber) == 1)
{
Total += LastNumber;
UpcomingCharacter = getchar( );
if (!isdigit(UpcomingCharacter)) // eliminates a possible EOF return as well
break;
if (ungetch(UpcomingCharacter, stdin) != UpcomingCharacter)
{
fprintf(stderr, "%d: unexpected error with ungetch\n", __LINE__);
return EXIT_FAILURE;
}
}
printf("total is %d", Total);
return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}
Which should work fine on any whitespace-delimited sequence of numbers, excluding the new-lines of course.