do while loop for Yes/No user prompt - c

My program which finds prime factors is all set...the only thing left that I need to do is this type of output:
Do you want to try another number? Say Y(es) or N(o): y
//asks for another number (goes through the program again)
Do you want to try another number? Say Y(es) or N(o): n
//Thank you for using my program. Good Bye!
I have my attempt at this below...When I type n it does the correct output. But if I type 'y' it just says the same thing n does....How can I loop the entire program without putting the code for the program inside this while loop I have? So when I press y it goes through the program again?
int main() {
unsigned num;
char response;
do{
printf("Please enter a positive integer greater than 1 and less than 2000: ");
scanf("%d", &num);
if (num > 1 && num < 2000){
printf("The distinctive prime facters are given below: \n");
printDistinctPrimeFactors(num);
printf("All of the prime factors are given below: \n");
printPrimeFactors(num);
}
else{
printf("Sorry that number does not fall within the given range. \n");
}
printf("Do you want to try another number? Say Y(es) or N(o): \n");
response = getchar();
getchar();
}
while(response == 'Y' || response == 'y');
printf("Thank you for using my program. Goodbye!");
return 0;
} /* main() */

The problem is probably, that you're getting something that isn't y from getchar and the loop exits, as the condition is not matched.
getchar() may use a buffer, so when you type 'y' and hit enter, you will get char 121 (y) and 10 (enter).
Try the following progam and see what output you get:
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void) {
char c = 0;
while((c=getchar())) {
printf("%d\n", c);
}
return 0;
}
You will see something like this:
$ ./getchar
f<hit enter>
102
10
What you can see is that the keyboard input is buffered and with the next run of getchar() you get the buffered newline.
EDIT: My description is only partially correct in terms of your problem. You use scanf to read the number you're testing against. So you do: number, enter, y, enter.
scanf reads the number, leaves the newline from your enter in the buffer, the response = getchar(); reads the newline and stores the newline in response, the next call to getchar() (to strip the newline I described above) gets the 'y' and your loop exits.
You can fix this by having scanf read the newline, so it doesn't linger in the buffer: scanf("%d\n", &number);.

When reading input using scanf (when you enter your number above), the input is read after the return key is pressed but the newline generated by the return key is not consumed by scanf.
That means your first call to getchar() will return the newline (still sitting in the buffer), which is not a 'Y'.
If you reverse your two calls to getchar() - where the second one is the one you assign to your variable, your program will work.
printf("Do you want to try another number? Say Y(es) or N(o): \n");
getchar(); // the newline not consumed by the scanf way above
response = getchar();

just put getchar() after scanf statement of yours that will eat the unnecessary '\n' from buffer...

As others have stated, there is a single '\n' character in the input stream left over from your earlier call to scanf().
Fortunately, the standard library function fpurge(FILE *stream) erases any input or output buffered in the given stream. When placed anywhere between your calls to scanf() and getchar(), the following will rid stdin of anything left in the buffer:
fpurge(stdin);

Related

why the below code is taking two input on single execution of scanf funcion

#include<stdio.h>
#include<conio.h>
int main()
{
int Dividend,divisor;
printf("Checking Divisiblity of 1st number with 2nd number \n\n") ;
printf("Enter Number \n") ;
scanf("%d",&Dividend);
printf("Enter Divisor = ");
scanf("%d",&divisor) ;
if(Dividend % divisor == 0)
{
printf("Number %d is divisible by %d",Dividend,divisor) ;
}
else
{
printf("Number %d is not divisible by %d",Dividend,divisor) ;
}
getch();
return 0;
}
Above is my code that i have written in C ;
on running this program . Only on first execution of scanf function if i give two input space seperated , the second input is going on right variable . and on hitting enter i am getting result . I am not understanding how is this happing .
When space is pressed, scanf doesn't see anything yet. Something happens only after enter is pressed. It then takes everything to the left of the space character and assigns it to the first variable, and everything to the right of the space character and assigns it to the second variable.
If you don't press the spacebar, scanf will interpret everything you type as a single number and will assign it to the first variable.
Instead what you may want to do is use the %c format specifier to read a single character at a time. You can then check if the character is a space character and if it is, you can break out of the loop. Otherwise, you can keep reading characters until you reach a space character.
stdin is line based by default. Your program gets nothing until you press enter. Then your program has the entire line of text available.
Result of this is, that scanf, getchar, fgets, etc calls will not return until you press enter. After enter press, entire line is available and the function starts to process it.
scanf is kinda special, that if you have int parsed_count = scanf("%d%d", &a, &b);, it will read two integers, no matter how many times you press enter, so you can either do
1 2<enter>
Or you can do
<enter>
1<enter>
<enter>
2<enter>
and scanf will still read these two integers (it returns early if there is parse error, which is why you need to check the return value!).
And vice versa, if there is already input available, then scanf may return immediately, so if you have this code
scanf("%d",&Dividend);
printf("Enter Divisor = ");
scanf("%d",&divisor) ;
and enter text
1 2<enter>
Then first scanf will wait for enter press, then consume the first integer, leaving 2<enter> still unread. Then there's print, and then 2nd scanf starts reading, skipping the whitespace and immediately getting 2nd integer. So you see
1 2 <- this is your typing echoed, not print from your program
Enter Divisor = <- printf printed this
If you want to take only one input per enter press, you can simply read characters until newline, because scanf leaves them there. Example loop to read until newline, or exit program at end of file/error:
while(true) {
int ch = getchar();
if (ch == EOF) exit(1);
if (ch == '\n') break;
}

getchar() not working in c

getchar() is not working in the below program, can anyone help me to solve this out. I tried scanf() function in place of getchar() then also it is not working.
I am not able to figure out the root cause of the issue, can anyone please help me.
#include<stdio.h>
int main()
{
int x, n=0, p=0,z=0,i=0;
char ch;
do
{
printf("\nEnter a number : ");
scanf("%d",&x);
if (x<0)
n++;
else if (x>0)
p++;
else
z++;
printf("\nAny more number want to enter : Y , N ? ");
ch = getchar();
i++;
}while(ch=='y'||ch=='Y');
printf("\nTotal numbers entered : %d\n",i);
printf("Total Negative Number : %d\n",n);
printf("Total Positive number : %d\n",p);
printf("Total Zero : %d\n",z);
return 0 ;
}
The code has been copied from the book of "Yashvant Kanetkar"
I think, in your code, the problem is with the leftover \n from
scanf("%d",&x);
You can change that scanning statement to
scanf("%d%*c",&x);
to eat up the newline. Then the next getchar() will wait for the user input, as expected.
That said, the return type of getchar() is int. You can check the man page for details. So, the returned value may not fit into a char always. Suggest changing ch to int from char.
Finally, the recommended signature of main() is int main(void).
That's because scanf() left the trailing newline in input.
I suggest replacing this:
ch = getchar();
With:
scanf(" %c", &ch);
Note the leading space in the format string. It is needed to force scanf() to ignore every whitespace character until a non-whitespace is read. This is generally more robust than consuming a single char in the previous scanf() because it ignores any number of blanks.
When the user inputs x and presses enter,the new line character is left in the input stream after scanf() operation.Then when try you to read a char using getchar() it reads the same new line character.In short ch gets the value of newline character.You can use a loop to ignore newline character.
ch=getchar();
while(ch=='\n')
ch=getchar();
When you using scanf getchar etc. everything you entered stored as a string (char sequence) in stdin (standard input), then the program uses what is needed and leaves the remains in stdin.
For example: 456 is {'4','5','6','\0'}, 4tf is {'4','t','f','\0'} with scanf("%d",&x); you ask the program to read an integer in the first case will read 456 and leave {'\0'} in stdin and in the second will read 4 and leave {''t','f',\0'}.
After the scanf you should use the fflush(stdin) in order to clear the input stream.
Replacing ch = getchar(); with scanf(" %c", &ch); worked just fine for me!
But using fflush(stdin) after scanf didn't work.
My suggestion for you is to define a Macro like:
#define __GETCHAR__ if (getchar()=='\n') getchar();
Then you can use it like:
printf("\nAny more number want to enter : Y , N ? ");
__GETCHAR__;
I agree that it is not the best option, but it is a little bit more elegant.
Add one more line ch = getchar();
between scanf("%d",&x); and ch = getchar();
then your code work correctly.
Because when you take input from user, in this time you press a new line \n after the integer value then the variable ch store this new line by this line of code ch = getchar(); and that's why you program crash because condition can not work correctly.
Because we know that a new line \n is also a char that's why you code crash.
So, for skip this new line \n add one more time ch = getchar();
like,
ch = getchar(); // this line of code skip your new line when you press enter key after taking input.
ch = getchar(); // this line store your char input
or
scanf("%d",&x);
ch = getchar(); // this line of code skip your new line when you press enter key after taking input.
pieces of code work correctly.

How to enter a letter to quit a program in C

I am new to C programming. I have been writing this code to add numbers and I just need help with this one thing. When I type the letter 'q', the program should quit and give me the sum. How am I supposed to do that? It is currently the number 0 to close the program.
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
printf("Sum Calculator\n");
printf("==============\n");
printf("Enter the numbers you would like to calculate the sum of.\n");
printf("When done, type '0' to output the results and quit.\n");
float sum,num;
do
{
printf("Enter a number:");
scanf("%f",&num);
sum+=num;
}
while (num!=0);
printf("The sum of the numbers is %.6f\n",sum);
return 0;
}
One approach would be to change your scanf line to:
if ( 1 != scanf("%f",&num) )
break;
This will exit the loop if they enter anything which is not recognizable as a number.
Whether or not you take this approach, it is still a good idea to check the return value of scanf and take appropriate action if failed. As you have it now, if they enter some text instead of a number then your program goes into an infinite loop since the scanf continually fails without consuming input.
It's actually not as straightforward as you'd think it would be. One approach is to check the value returned by scanf, which returns the number of arguments correctly read, and if the number wasn't successfully read, try another scanf to look for the quit character:
bool quit = false;
do
{
printf("Enter a number:");
int numArgsRead = scanf("%f",&num);
if(numArgsRead == 1)
{
sum+=num;
}
else // scan for number failed
{
char c;
scanf("%c",&c);
if(c == 'q') quit = true;
}
}
while (!quit);
If you want your program to ignore other inputs (like another letter wouldn't quit) it gets more complicated.
The first solution would be to read the input as a character string, compare it to your character and then convert it to a number later. However, it has many issues such as buffer overflows and the like. So I'm not recommending it.
There is however a better solution for this:
char quit;
do
{
printf("Enter a number:");
quit=getchar();
ungetc(quit, stdin);
if(scanf("%f", &num))
sum+=num;
}
while (quit!='q')
ungetc pushes back the character on the input so it allows you to "peek" at the console input and check for a specific value.
You can replace it with a different character but in this case it is probably the easiest solution that fits exactly what you asked. It won't try to add numbers when the input is incorrect and will quit only with q.
#Shura
scan the user input as a string.
check string[0] for the exit condition. q in your case
If exit condition is met, break
If exit condition is not met, use atof() to convert the string to double
atof() reference http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/cstdlib/atof/

why is the printf statement executed more than once? [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
Scanf skips every other while loop in C
(10 answers)
Closed 5 years ago.
program to count number of +ve, -ve and zeroes in the input.the printf statement in the for loop is executed more than once.how to correct this code.the count is correct but output is not in the expected format.
#include<stdio.h>
main()
{
int n,pc,nc,zc;
char s;
pc=nc=zc=0;
for(;1;) {
printf("do you wanna enter: y/n\n");
s=getchar();
if(s=='y') {
printf("enter num:\n");
scanf("%d",&n);
if(n>0) {
pc+=1;
}
if(n<0) {
nc+=1;
}
if(n==0) zc+=1;
}
if(s=='n') break;
}
printf("No.of +ve num: %d \n",pc);
printf("No.of -ve num: %d \n",nc);
printf("No.of zeroes: %d \n",zc);
}
output:
xplorer#kali:~/Desktop/docs/yk/chap3$ ./a.out
do you wanna enter: y/n
y
enter num:
4
do you wanna enter: y/n
do you wanna enter: y/n
y
enter num:
8
do you wanna enter: y/n
do you wanna enter: y/n
y
enter num:
-7
do you wanna enter: y/n
do you wanna enter: y/n
n
No.of +ve num: 2
No.of -ve num: 1
No.of zeroes: 0
\n is left behind in input buffer by previous call of getchar because it reads a character at a time. As '\n' is also a character, n next iteration getchar reads that left over \n .
You need to flush the input buffer:
int c;
while((c = getchar()) != '\n' && c != EOF);
...
{
printf("enter num:\n");
scanf("%d",&n);
...
The 'scanf' in the above snippet of the question code reads an integer from stdin, but only after the user presses return. The return character '\n' is also sent to stdin, however, the above 'scanf' is satisfied with reading only the integer value, and leaves the '\n' character in the stdin stream. The next time any function attempts to read from stdin, the '\n' character will be there to read. This is causing undesirable results in the question code here:
...
{
printf("do you wanna enter: y/n\n");
s=getchar();
....
The 'getchar' function read the '\n' character from stdin, and the program acts on it.
One way to avoid this problem is to have the 'scanf' function read the residual '\n' character from the buffer. This can be done by changing this:
scanf("%d",&n);
To this:
scanf("%d%*c",&n);
The latter reads the integer value from the stdin stream, and then reads (and discards) the residual '\n' character.
After each read from stdin, remove all additional characters from the buffer with:
/* discard (flush) remaining chars in stdin */
while (ch !='\n') ch = getchar();
As discussed in other answers, after you test with scanf or other input utilities, additional characters remain in the input buffer. You cannot reliably flush the input buffer with any standard function such as fflush as they apply to output buffers and not to input buffers. The simple while loop that scans for the newline insures that all characters are read regardless of whether a carriage return is present before the newline and is therefore portable between most OS's.
If curses.h is available on your system, You can use flushinp function to flush the input.
Check C FAQ: http://c-faq.com/stdio/stdinflush2.html
You have only checked for two conditions i.e 'y' or 'n' and not for the other so It might happen that it takes input other than 'y' or 'n'from previous inputs and loop continues. So just chk by printing if it is taking any other input and make changes accordingly.
Replace s=getchar(); with
do
{
s=getchar();
}while (isspace(s));
Things will start working.

scanf ignoring, infinite loop

int flag = 0;
int price = 0;
while (flag==0)
{
printf("\nEnter Product price: ");
scanf("%d",&price);
if (price==0)
printf("input not valid\n");
else
flag=1;
}
When I enter a valid number, the loop ends as expected. But if I enter something that isn't a number, like hello, then the code goes into an infinite loop. It just keeps printing Enter Product price: and input not valid. But it doesn't wait for me to enter a new number. Why is that?
When you enter something that isn't a number, scanf will fail and will leave those characters on the input. So if you enter hello, scanf will see the h, reject it as not valid for a decimal number, and leave it on the input. The next time through the loop, scanf will see the h again, so it just keeps looping forever.
One solution to this problem is to read an entire line of input with fgets and then parse the line with sscanf. That way, if the sscanf fails, nothing is left on the input. The user will have to enter a new line for fgets to read.
Something along these lines:
char buffer[STRING_SIZE];
...
while(...) {
...
fgets(buffer, STRING_SIZE, stdin);
if ( sscanf(buffer, "%d", &price) == 1 )
break; // sscanf succeeded, end the loop
...
}
If you just do a getchar as suggested in another answer, then you might miss the \n character in case the user types something after the number (e.g. a whitespace, possibly followed by other characters).
You should always test the return value of sscanf. It returns the number of conversions assigned, so if the return value isn't the same as the number of conversions requested, it means that the parsing has failed. In this example, there is 1 conversion requested, so sscanf returns 1 when it's successful.
The %d format is for decimals. When scanf fails (something other a decimal is entered) the character that caused it to fail will remain as the input.
Example.
int va;
scanf("%d",&va);
printf("Val %d 1 \n", val);
scanf("%d",&va);
printf("Val %d 2 \n", val);
return 0;
So no conversion occurs.
The scanf function returns the value of the macro EOF if an input failure occurs before
any conversion. Otherwise, the scanf function returns the number of input items
assigned, which can be fewer than provided for, or even zero, in the event of an early
matching failure
7.19.6. The scanf function - JTC1/SC22/WG14 - C
So you should note that scanf returns its own form of notice for success
int scanf(char *format)
so you could have also did the following
do {
printf("Enter Product \n");
}
while (scanf("%d", &sale.m_price) == 1);
if(scanf("%d", &sale.m_price) == 0)
PrintWrongInput();
Also keep in the back of your head to try to stay away from scanf. scanf or scan formatted should not be used for interactive user input. See the C FAQ 12.20
After the first number, a '\n' will be in the input buffer (the return you pressed to input the number), so in the second iteration the scanf call will fail (becouse \n isn't a number), scanf will not remove that \n from the buffer, so in the next iteration it will fail again and so on.
You can fix that by reading the '\n' with a getchar() call after scanf.
The "answers" that say it will because there is a '\n' in the buffer are mistaken -- scanf("%d", ...) skips white space, including newlines.
It goes into an infinite loop if x contains 0 and scanf encounters a non-number (not just whitespace) or EOF because x will stay 0 and there's no way for it to become otherwise. This should be clear from just looking at your code and thinking about what it will do in that case.
It goes into an infinite loop because scanf() will not consumed the input token if match fails. scanf() will try to match the same input again and again. you need to flush the stdin.
if (!scanf("%d", &sale.m_price))
fflush(stdin);
Edit: Back when I first wrote this answer, I was so stupid and ignorant about how scanf() worked.
First of all let me clear something, scanf() is not a broken function, if I don't know how scanf() works and I don't know how to use it, then I probably haven't read the manual for scans() and that cannot be scanf()'s fault.
Second in order to understand what is wrong with your code you need to know how scanf() works.
When you use scanf("%d", &price) in your code, the scanf() tries to read in an integer from the input, but if you enter a non numeric value, scanf() knows it isn't the right data type, so it puts the read input back into the buffer, on the next loop cycle however the invalid input is still in the buffer which will cause scanf() to fail again because the buffer hasn't been emptied, and this cycle goes on forever.
In order to tackle this problem you can use the return value of scanf(), which will be the number of successful inputs read, however you need to discard the invalid inputs by flushing the buffer in order to avoid an infinite loop, the input buffer is flushed when the enter key is pressed, you can do this using the getchar() function to make a pause to get an input, which will require you to press the enter key thus discarding the invalid input, note that, this will not make you press the enter key twice whether or not you entered the correct data type, because the newline character will still be in the buffer. After scanf() has successfully finished reading the integer from input, it will put \n back into the buffer, so getchar() will read it, but since you don't need it, it's safe to discard it:
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void)
{
int flag = 0;
int price = 0;
int status = 0;
while (flag == 0 && status != 1)
{
printf("\nEnter Product price: ");
status = scanf("%d", &price);
getchar();
if (price == 0)
printf("input not valid\n");
else
flag = 1;
}
return 0;
}

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