Beginning C Program - c

Question

I was working though some beginning problem sets with Harvard's online CS50 class. I got the problem to work correctly but I was wondering if there would possibly be a cleaner or better way to get the program to work.
The goal of the program is to print a right-aligned pyramid comprised of hash-tags and space characters. Any guidance in regards to style or tricks would be very welcome.
/* Creating the mario program, whose goal is to create a
* pyramid by accepting input from the user to get the
* height then aligning the pyrimid to the right.
*
*/
#include <stdio.h>
#include <cs50.h>
int main(void)
{
// get user input and set to variable
printf("Height: ");
int height = GetInt();
int i, j, k;
for(i = 1 ; i < height; i++)
{
// create n-1 spaces
for(k = (height - 2); k > (i-1); k--)
{
printf("%c", ' ');
}
// create n+1 hash tags
for(j = 0; j < (i+1); j++)
{
printf("#");
}
printf("\n");
}
return 0;
}

Answer 1

I'm assuming by cleaner you mean "spiffy and fancyer".
This looks spiffy to me:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <cs50.h>
int main(void) {
// get user input and set to variable
printf("Height: ");
int height = GetInt();
int hm2 = height - 2;
int j, k;
for(int i = 1 ; i < height; i++) {
// create n-1 spaces
for(k = hm2; k > (i-1); k--)
printf("%c", ' ');
// create n+1 hash tags
for(j = 0; j < (i+1); j++)
printf("#");
printf("\n");
}
return 0;
}
However, don't get too caught up in making your code fancy. Although it's nice if you're working with others, or yourself really. Your example looked fine.
Now, optimization-wise, that's something to worry about. Just remember that too much optimization can potentially break your program.

Answer 2

For everyone's consideration: this is what "all style and no readability" looks like :)
i = 0;
while (i++ < height*height)
printf ("%c%s", (i-1)/height < height-(i-1)%height-1 ? ' ' : '#',
i % height ? "" : "\n");
It is nigh on impossible to see what the code does without running it. If there is to be a follow-up exercise, this is hard to re-write to form, say, an even-sided pyramid. I'd probably throw this away and start again with the basics, before concatenating it again into a little monster such as this.
(later) Ever so slightly more neat to put the i++ at the end, so two times (i-1) gets traded for a slightly more complicated end-of-line test:
i = 0;
do
printf ("%c%s", i/height < height-i%height-1 ? ' ' : '#',
i % height==height-1 ? "\n" : "");
while (++i < height*height);

Answer 3

I think by cleaner and better way you mean to be a perfect shaped right angled triangle pyramid.
For this you should do as
Change
printf("Height: ");
to
printf("Height: \n\n");
and
for(i = 1 ; i < height; i++)
to
for(i = 0 ; i < height; i++)
And see the sample output.

Answer 4

Here's a suggestion:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <cs50.h>
int main(void) {
//initialize variables
int height, hm2, j, k, i;
printf("Height: \n");
// Get user input
height = GetInt();
hm2 = height - 1;
for(i = 0; i < height; i++) {
// create n spaces
for(k = hm2; k > i; k--)
printf("%c", ' ');
// create n+1 hash tags
for(j = 0; j < i+1; j++)
printf("#");
printf("\n");
}
return 0;
}
Result if the user entered a 5 for the height:
Height:
#
##
###
####
#####
A couple things I considered with this version of the code:
-In C, it's good practice to declare all variables separately from giving them a value and assign values later. Some compilers may bring up this error if you to declare and assign a value in a for loop: "error: ‘for’ loop initial declarations are only allowed in C99 mode". These changes are considered with what I have provided.
//initialize variables
int height, hm2, j, k, i;
-I added a newline here
printf("Height: \n");
-Instead of hm2 = height - 2 I changed it to:
hm2 = height - 1;
-First loop, now we give i a value and set it to 0 to meet the other changes that were made:
for(i = 0; i < height; i++) {
-For the loop creating n spaces I changed it to:
for(k = hm2; k > i; k--)
-Finally removed parenthesis (no need in this case) in last for loop:
for(j = 0; j < i+1; j++)
Cheers