count blanks from the input - c

I wrote a program to count blanks. I can compile it and run it, it's fine. But why it does not display the count?
#include<stdio.h>
main()
{
int count=0;
int c;
while((c=getchar())!=EOF)
{
if(c == ' ') count++;
}
printf("%d\n",count);
}

Your exact code (errors and all) works as you'd expect at ideone.
How do you terminate the input? To send an EOF signal to your program from the console type, at the beginning of a line, CtrlD in Linux or CtrlZ in Windows.
Also try to run with redirected input. Something like
yourprog < data.txt
or
echo one two three four | yourprog

You're probably not getting the EOF that you expect from input. You may be expecting the Enter key to be EOF, which will not happen. Have you tried using one of the ctrl+ combinations such as Z or D (depending on OS) to send the EOF ?

Related

Using EOF and getchar() to count the number of characters

I am trying to write a program for counting the number of characters in C. Below is my program:
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void){
// long nc;
// for(nc = 0; getchar() != EOF; nc++);
// printf("%ld\n", nc);
long nc;
nc = 0;
while(getchar() != EOF){
++nc;
}
printf("%ld\n", nc);
return 0;
}
When I execute the above program using the input :-
123<Enter>
then I press the control + ^d on my Mac to represent EOF, I am getting the output as 4D instead of just 4. Can anyone please tell me why I am getting D in my output?
[Turning my comment into an answer]
The "problem" is that the terminal program itself writes the output ^D as response to the Ctrl-D.
With the original output of your program (without the extra leading newline) the program writes its output 4 over the ^ written by the terminal. The (trailing) newline from the program then makes the terminal go to the next line where the shell takes over and writes it prompt.
This will make it seem like the output of your program is 4D.
As a possible solution, you might want to check the settings of your terminal program to see if its own output could be disabled.

Character Counter from "The C Programming Language" Not Working As I Expected

I am reading through "The C Programming Language", and working through all the exercises with CodeBlocks. But I cannot get my character counter to work, despite copying it directly from the book. The code looks like this:
#include <stdio.h>
main(){
long nc;
nc = 0;
while (getchar() != EOF)
++nc;
printf("%ld\n", nc);
}
When I run the program, it opens a window I can type in, but when I hit enter all that happens is it skips down a line and I can keep typing, but I think it's supposed to print the number of characters.
Any idea what's going wrong?
This line:
while (getchar() != EOF)
means that it keeps reading until the end of input — not until the end of a line. (EOF is a special constant meaning "end of file".) You need to end input (probably with Ctrl-D or with Ctrl-Z) to see the total number of characters that were input.
If you want to terminate on EOL (end of line), replace EOF with '\n':
#include <stdio.h>
main(){
long nc;
nc = 0;
while (getchar() != '\n')
++nc;
printf("%ld\n", nc);
}
Enter is not EOF. Depending on your OS, Ctrl-D or Ctrl-Z should act as EOF on standard input.
I ran into the problem tonight, too. Finally found out that Ctrl-D on Linux worked. You build the source file using cc, and start the program and input a word, then press Ctrl-D twice when finished typing. The number that the program countered will be printed just behind the very word you just typed, and the program terminates immediately. Just like this:
The above answer provided by nujabse is correct. But recently coming across this issue myself and researching the answer, I would like to add why.
Using Ctrl+C tells the terminal to send a SIGINT to the current foreground process, which by default translates into terminating the application.
Ctrl+D tells the terminal that it should register a EOF on standard input, which bash interprets as a desire to exit.
What's the difference between ^C and ^D

Unable to print number of characters using getchar, in Ubuntu

I am new to C, and to Ubuntu. I wrote a very simple program to count the number of characters using while and getchar(). The program is:
#include <stdio.h>
main() {
int i;
int c= 0;
while ( ( i = getchar() ) != EOF ){
c++ ;
}
printf( "%d characters\n" , c) ;
return 0;
}
I saved it and compiled it using gcc c1.c -o c1. No errors reported. I executed the program using ./c1 . I give the input as daniweb then I press enter, but the count is displayed. What went wrong? Is it infinite loop? How does getchar() determine EOF when input is given from keyboard?
On the terminal you can send EOF to an application by pressing Ctrl+D. You can also do something like this:
echo "blablub" | ./yourprogram
To count how many characters are in blablub. In this case EOF is sent automatically.
Pressing enter sends a new line character to your program, not EOF. As others have mention already, use Ctrl+D to send EOF. If you want to stop reading characters on newline, change your while loop to this:
while ( ( i = getchar() ) != '\n' ){
c++ ;
}

Why does getchar() not work right?

Today, I wrote a simple piece of code that uses getchar() to count the characters you input. But when I compile it on Cygwin, it does not work. It always prints 0, but I never input anything or I can't input any characters it prints 0.
However, if I compile it with VC++6.0, it works.
#include<stdio.h>
int main(void)
{
long nc;
nc = 0;
while(getchar() != EOF)
++nc;
printf("The total of characters you inputed is %ld.\n", nc);
return 0;
}
This email thread talks about a bug that sounds much like yours, but I can't see that there are any follow-ups to it.
I would be interested to know what happened when you try
while(getc(stdin) != EOF)
and if that doesn't work, try
while(fgetc(stdin) != EOF)
All of them should work, though this page suggests there could be implementation differences between these functions.
Another thing you could try is to print the ASCII value of what you get:
printf("%d\n",(int)getchar());
Also, try piping output from a file instead of typing it in the console. Create a file input.txt, put some characters in it, and do
cat input.txt | ./program
EDIT: You write running cat and piping it works. I would say simply update your Cygwin version. You have encountered a bug. Get the newest versions of Cygwin and the compiler, and you should be good to go. Another option is to use scanf.

count the number of lines, words, and characters within an input

Right now I am going through a book on C and have come across an example in the book which I cannot get to work.
#include <stdio.h>
#define IN 1
#define OUT 0
main()
{
int c, nl, nw, nc, state;
state = OUT;
nl = nw = nc = 0;
while ((c = getchar()) != EOF) {
++nc;
if (c == '\n')
++nl;
if (c == ' ' || c == '\n' || c == '\t')
state = OUT;
else if (state == OUT) {
state = IN;
++nw;
}
}
printf("%d %d %d\n", nl, nw, nc);
}
It's supposed to count the number of lines, words, and characters within an input. However, when I run it in the terminal it appears to do nothing. Am I missing something or is there a problem with this code?
The program only terminates when the input ends (getchar returns EOF). When running on terminal, this normally never happens and because of this it seems that the program is stuck. You need to close the input manually by pressing Ctrl+D (possibly twice) on Linux or pressing F6 and Enter at the beginning of the line on Windows (different systems may use different means for this).
It's waiting for input on stdin. Either redirect a file into it (myprog < test.txt) or type out the data and hit Ctrl-D (*nix) or Ctrl-Z (Windows).
When you run it, you need to type in your text, press return, then type Ctrl-d and return (nothing else on the line) to signify end-of-file. Seems to work fine with my simple test.
What it is doing is entering a loop for input. If you enter a character or newline, nothing happens on the screen. You need to interrupt the process (on my Mac this is CTRL+D) which serves as EOF. Then, you will get the result.
getchar() returns the input from the standard input. Start typing the text for which you want to have the word count and line count. Your input terminates when EOF is reached, which you do by hitting CTRL D.
CTRL D in this case acts as an End Of Transmission character.
cheers
I usually handle this kind of input like this (for Linux):
1. make a file (for example, named "input.txt"), type your input and save
2. use a pipe to send the text to your application (here assume your application named "a.out" and in the current directory):
cat input.txt | ./a.out
you'll see the program running correctly.

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