C exit function not doing what I thought it would - c

When I use a debugger I can tell the exit is not exiting the function. Am I using the exit function wrong? (i must be) how do I fix this?
int is_prime(int x,char array[]){
int divider = (x-1);
float test;
while(x>-1){
test = isdigit((x % divider)); //isdigit returns !0 if digit
if(divider == '1'){
return(1); //if divider reaches 1 then the number is prime
exit;
}
if(test == '0'){
return (0);//not prime
exit;
}
divider--;
}
}

The name of a function by itself (with no parenthesis after it) just gives you the address of a function without calling it. In C the most basic statement is an expression which is evaluated for its side effects, with the resulting value of the expression ignored. So a statement like exit; or 3; which has no side effects is legal but doesn't actually do anything and might as well be deleted. Some compilers will give you warnings about such meaningless statements, though you may have to turn on extra diagnostic warnings to get them. Using such options (such as -Wall for gcc) is a very good idea and will help you avoid some pitfalls like this.

You must call it:
exit(0);
Also, if you put it after return, it will never be called, since return returns from the function.
EDIT: And, as others have said, exit exits the program, so you probably don't want to use exit here.

Besides the bugs of returnand exit you have a bug also in the way you use ints and characters. isdigit is a function that is only applied to characters, giving true if a character is between '0' and '9', but one should know that the character notation in C is only a fancy way of writing a codepoint (ASCII most of the time). So when you write '1' in a C program, the compiler will see 49, if you write 'a' the compiler sees in reality 97. This means that isdigit return true for the values 48 to 57, probably not what you intended. In the line where you compare divider with '1', in reality you're comparing it with 49 (except on IBM mainframe, where '1' is 241)
Your loop is infinite, it depends on the value of x, but x isn't changed in the loop, so the condition in the while can never change.
EDIT: Here the corrected code
int is_prime(uint_t x)
{
uint_t divider;
if(x <= 3)
return 1;
for(divider = x-1; ; divider--) {
if(x % divider == 0)
return 0; //not prime
if(divider == 1)
return 1; //if divider reaches 1 then the number is prime
}
}

Read exit(3)'s manual.

The statement:
exit;
gives the following warning with GCC:
C:\temp\test.c:71: warning: statement with no effect
What happening is that you have an expression that evaluates to the address of the exit() function - but that expression doesn't actually do anything with that address. it's similar to if you had a statement like:
1 + 2;
It's valid C, but it has no effect on anything.
To call the function, as Thomas Padron-McCarth said, you have to have the argument list (even if they're empty for some functions):
exit(0);

exit exits the process, not the function. You want return.

Related

Why is the output different in the short version of if condition when compared to its expanded version?

int a = 0;
a = 7 > 2 ? printf("6") : printf("4");
printf ("%d",a);
The ouput of this block is :
61
I tried the code in its expanded form
int a = 0 ;
if(7>2)
{
printf("6");
}
else
{
printf("4");
}
printf("%d",a);
Here I the output was:
60
I would like to get an explanation on why the output differs.
The first statement assigns the return value of printf to a. printf returns the number of bytes that were written. In this case that is 1. In the second expanded version, a is not assigned. Here is an actually equivalent version to the original:
int a = 0;
if(7>2)
{
a = printf("6");
}
else
{
a = printf("4");
}
printf("%d",a);
They are completely different.
To make them identical:
int a = 0 ;
if(7>2)
{
a = printf("6");
}
else
{
a = printf("4");
}
printf("%d",a);
cond?val1:val2 is the ternary operator. It is not supposed to be a control structure (like if, for or while). It is an operator. To build expression (things that have a value) rather than instruction (things that does things).
Frontier is fuzzier in C than in other languages, because instructions have a value (including void) and expression have potential side-effects.
But, well, you use cond?val1:val2 when you want to get the result. As you did, since you assigned the result to a.
And the result here is the result of printf("6"), that is 1, since printf returns the number of printed characters. Note that there is no real doubt, since even if 7 were smaller than 2, result would still have been 1. Since you print that result, it is normal to have a 1 printed after the 6.
(Just to be clear, even if I assume you know that already, what you did is print string "6" and then number 1, which is the result of 1st printf. Exactly as if you did
printf("%d",printf("6"));
which 1st prints "6", then pass the result to the outer printf to print what the inner printf returned, that is 1)
In your second code, you do nothing to change a's value, and you ignore the result of printf.
Your examples aren't equivalent. To be equivalent, the second one should say a=printf(... everywhere. After which a will get assigned the number of characters printed, 1.
The conditional operator (e1 ? e2 : e3) is not a "short version of if condition", although it has some similarities with an if ... else construct. The conditional operator yields a value (which you assign to a in your first example); an if ... else construct does not have a value.
So, your first example assigns a value to a, because it is written in the form of an assignment statement; that value is the 1 returned by the call to the printf function. To get similar behaviour in your second example, as others have said, you need to also assign the value returned by printf inside the if ... else blocks.
Alternatively, to make the first case work like the second, you can skip the assignment and use the conditional operation to determine the argument that is passed to the printf call:
int main(void)
{
int a = 0;
printf(7 > 2 ? "6" : "4");
printf("%d", a);
return 0;
}

Does a statement after return encounters even execute the statement after it

Will printf("hello") statement in the function fact() will ever get executed? If yes than why it doesn't get printed when call the function fact in main? If not then does this return statement returns the value to the function and statement printf("Hello") is never approached.
#include <stdio.h>
int fact(int n)
{
if (n == 1)
return 1;
else
return (n * fact(n - 1));
printf("Hello");
}
main()
{
printf("%d", fact(6));
}
The Law of Excluded Middle is incredibly useful for formal reasoning about if statements. The two choices that you have in your code are as follows:
n is equal to 1, and
n is not equal to 1.
There is no third "middle" state in this logic.
Now let's go back to your code, and see what happens depending on the value of n. When it is 1, your code returns 1. When n is not one, your code returns a result of some calculation.
In order for printf("Hello") to be reached, n needs to be equal to one and not equal to one at the same time (i.e. n==1 && n!=1 must be true). The law of excluded middle lets you mathematically prove that this expression is false for all values of n, meaning that the printf line is unreachable under any circumstances. Optimizing C compilers will issue a warning, and remove this "dead code" from the executable that they generate.
int fact(int n)
{
if(n==1)
return 1; //statement 1
else
return (n*fact(n-1)); //statement 2
printf("Hello");
}
A function ends with a return statement. The return statement specifies that the function is ending while returning the following information.
whenever the function is called with any value of n, the function always ends execution in either statement 1 or statement 2, and thus never reaches the printf statement

Difference between return 0 and return 1

My professor posted
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
// enter code here
printf("Test 1: trying odd(3) AND even(2)...\n");
printf("%d\n", odd(3) && even(2));
printf("Test 2: trying odd(3) OR even(2)...\n");
printf("%d\n", odd(3) || even(2));
printf("Test 3: trying odd(4) AND even(7)...\n");
printf("%d\n", odd(4) && even(7));
printf("Test 4: trying odd(4) OR even(7)...\n");
printf("%d\n", odd(4) || even(7));
return 0;
}
int odd(int n)
{
printf("in odd!\n");
return n % 2 == 1;
}
int even(int r)
{
printf("in even!\n");
return r % 2 == 0;
}
as an assignment asking why lines 2 and 3 only return in odd! but 1 and 4 return in odd! and in even! I'm unsure as to why as I don't know the difference between the Return 1 and Return 0 commands. From what I can gather Return 1 will always return the value (in this case in odd!) but return 0 will only return it if it satisfies a certain condition?
Also: does the code int length(char *name,int start,double finish): return the length of a word in characters as a real number?
Thanks in advance to anyone that decides to help me.
This is called "Short-circuit evaluation".
...in which the second argument is executed or evaluated only if the first argument does not suffice to determine the value of the expression...
Therefore, you have to figure out what will these two functions odd and even return:
odd(): If n % 2 == 1 , return 1, otherwise 0
even(): If n % 2 == 0 , return 1, otherwise 0
And in the main() function,
odd(3) AND even(2): odd(3) return 1, and check the return value of even(2), therefore the even() is called.
odd(3) OR even(2): odd(3) return 1, because of 'short-circuit evaluation', it doesn't need to check the even(2), therefore the even() isn't called.
odd(4) AND even(7): odd(4) return 0, because of 'short-circuit evaluation', it doesn't need to check the even(7), therefore the even() isn't called.
odd(4) OR even(7): odd(4) return 0, and check the return value of even(7), therefore the even() is called.
when evaluating a logical expressions, it checks the condition one by one and whenever the whole expression is known (whatever the remaining are) it stops evaluating them.
Example
unsigned char a = 1; // true
unsigned char b = 0; // false
case 1
if (a && b) printf("Yes");
check a: yes it is true
check b: no it is not true
Result: the expression is wrong and it doesn't print Yes
case 2
if (a && !b) printf("Yes");
checks a: yes it is true
checks b: yes it is false
Result: the expression is right and it prints Yes
case 3
if (a || b) printf("Yes");
checks a: yes it is true
checks b ?!!! WHY? no need to check b since the whole expression result is known only by checking a, do you agree?
Result: checks aand print Yes without even checking b
Project that on your code now ;)
Return 0; - the function returns 0.
Return 1; - the function returns 1.
In your case odd function returns 1 when number (n) is odd and 0 when the number is even.
This is done by "asking" if the reminder when dividing by 2 equels 1.
Also even function returns 1 when number (r) is even, and 0 when the number is odd.
This is done by "asking" if the reminder when dividing by 2 equels 0.
In your main function, and (&&) and or logical operations are done, on the results of the return values of odd and even functions.
Example:odd(3) return 1, even(2) return 1 then 1&&1 equals 1 (the result).
The logical Boolean algebra operators AND and OR (&& and ||) in C operate with an optimization known as short-circuit evaluation.
This is how the optimization works.
Imagine that you came up with a rule for yourself:
You will only date someone if they own a cat AND a dog AND a fish.
Now imagine you start talking to someone that you may be interested in dating. They say:
Well, I have a cat, I don't have a fish, but I do have a dog.
When did you stop paying attention to what they said? As soon as they said that they didn't have a fish, because as soon as they said that, they broke your "AND" rule. So, the rest of the sentence is completely irrelevant. This is short-circuiting AND.
Now imagine that you changed your rule:
You will only date someone if they own a cat OR a dog OR a fish.
Now imagine you start talking to someone that you may be interested in dating. They say:
Well, I don't have a cat, I have a fish, and I don't have a dog.
When did you stop paying attention to what they said? As soon as they said that they had a fish, because as soon as they said that, they satisfied your "OR" rule. So, the rest of the sentence is completely irrelevant. This is short-circuiting OR.
Short-circuit evaluation is a performance optimization for evaluating logical expressions.
In your example, the even() function returns true if the number passed to it is even, and the odd() function returns true if the number passed to it is even. Otherwise these functions return false. Look at each of the Boolean expressions and notice when short-circuit evaluation must occur.
There's also another way to test for even values for integral types.
int IsOdd(int x) { return (x & 1); }
int IsEven(int x) { return !(x & 1); }
If the least-significant bit is set, the number is odd. If not, it's even. This simply tests that bit. Just throwing this out there so you can eliminate the modulus operation... it's another option. Not an answer to your question, but I can't comment so...
As we know 0 indicates false-ness, 1 indicates true-ness. And the return part tells the compiler that the function must return the evaluated result to the caller module.
So, a return 1 means signal the caller module about a successful execution of the called module (with the aid of a Non-Zero quantity i.e. 1)
whereas,
return 0 presents a flag showing that there was some error/anomaly that led to the termination of the called module. So, in this case stderr shall be used to give details about such error.

assignment works as a condition

Consider the following Code,
int i;
while(i=0)
printf("Hello");
Now Generally speaking i=0 is an assignment and not a condition for while to check.
But the GCC compiler lets it go with a warning and even evaluates it correctly (does not execute the print statement).
Why? I usually would do with parenthesis for the truth value but my juniors feel that I am wrong and there is no real reason for the parenthesis in this!
EDIT: Zeroing down on the 'actual' doubt, Please consider the following test case
int callme(){
return 0;
}
int main(int argc,char*argv[]){
int c;
while(c = callme()){
printf("Calling...\n");
}
return 0;
}
The expression i = 0 does 2 things:
Has the side effect of storing o in i
Yields the value 0
I usually would do with parenthesis for the truth value but my juniors
feel that i am wrong and there is no real reason for the parenthesis
in this
It's usually a hint to the compiler meaning "I actually want this, I didn't forget a =, shut up".
For your specific case there's no reason to write if (i = 0): you already know what if (0) does. But it's pretty useful when used as:
if ((i = some_function()))
...
i=0 is always an assignment (unless you have it as part of int i = 0; where it is an initialization). But any non-void expression may appear inside the condition of a while loop and if it evaluates to non-zero, the body of the loop will be executed, and if it is zero, the body of the loop will not be executed.
The notation:
while (i = 0)
printf("Hello\n");
is always equivalent to:
i = 0;
There is very little justification for writing the loop at all.
People do write other expressions:
while (c = getchar())
...process EOF or a non-null character...
But that's usually a bug. It is more likely that you should be writing:
while ((c = getchar()) != EOF)
...process a character - possibly null...
or even:
while ((c = getchar()) != EOF && c != '\0')
...process a non-null character...
The first getchar() loop gets a warning from GCC; the latter two do not because of the the explicit test of the value from the assignment.
The people who write a condition like this:
while ((c = getchar()))
really annoy me. It avoids the warning from GCC, but it is not (IMNSHO) a good way of coding.
When you use an assignment operator such as
a=0;
You assign the value to 'a', and still return the number 0.
To test your question, I tried these lines of codes:
int a;
printf("%d", a=0);
and these lines displayed 0.
Then, I tested another set of codes:
int b;
printf("%d", b=15);
Here, the lines displayed 15.
So, if you do:
while(a=0)
{
printf("zero");
}
The (a=0) statement would return false, thus not displaying anything.
But if you do:
while(a=15)
{
printf("fifteen");
}
The "fifteen" will be displayed endlessly, because the statement (a=15) will return a non zero value, or 15, which is not false, not zero, thus it is true. :)
As cnicutar has told above the assignment also yields the value zero.
Some additional info:
It is a common coding mistake for people to omit an extra '=' whereby the comparison becomes an assignment.
An easy way to avoid this is to write the comparison as below, in which case even if a '=' is missed compiler will give an error
while(0 == i)
{
prinf("Hello");
}

Error: More than one instance of overloaded function "sqrt" matches the argument list. What that?

In my homework for my C class, we have to write a program that checks if an integer is prime. I am getting an error at the sqrt() function. My professor told me that num must be an integer and we must use the sqrt() function. I thought the problem was that the sqrt() function can't be used on an integer but my professor told me that it can, and that I was getting an error from something else. Do you guys see the problem?
int primality(int num)
{
int isprime;
/*check if num is prime*/
for (int i = 2; i <= sqrt(num); i++)
{
if (num % i == 0)
isprime = 0; /*is not prime*/
else
isprime = 1; /*is prime*/
}
if (isprime == 0)
return 0;
elseif (isprime == 1)
return 1;
}
EDIT:
Yes I am using math.h and compiling as C code.
The error msg is "Error: More than one instance of overloaded function "sqrt" matches the argument list.
The C language does not have "overloads". My bet is that you are compiling your code as C++, not C. If you're using GCC, compile with gcc, not g++. If you are using Visual Studio, there is an option in the properties of the project:
right click on your project
click properties
click on C/C++
click on advanced
set the property "compile as" to C Code (/TC)
In either case, name your file with a .c extension (lowercase 'c').
Indeed, in C there is only one sqrt, defined as
double sqrt(double);
and integers convert to double.
You don't want to return 1 inside your loop - it needs to be after the loop completes. Your professor is right that sqrt(num) will work - num will be promoted to double automatically - C has rules for type changes in function calls, etc. You do need to include math.h if you haven't done that elsewhere in your program - what error are you getting?
Your logic is wrong right here:
if (num % i == 0)
return 0; /*is not prime*/
else
return 1; /*is prime*/
If you think about it, if the number is not divisible by two, your function immediately returns 1.
You are returning too early. Remember that a return essentially stops your function and breaks out of it.
Instead, try to break out only when the number is composite and return True only when you are sure that it is prime.
Just as a side note, your function will register squares of primes (i.e. 9, 25, 49) as prime because you are using the < sign in your for loop.
Change it to a <= sign, as that will account for the square root being the only divisor of the number.
Did you #include <math.h>?
Also, according to your function 1, 2, and 3 come back as not prime... Might want to fix that. I'd offer more help but it sounds like this is for homework and I'd rather not just give you the answer (some universities consider it cheating).
To answer your actual question: sqrt() does not have an overload for int, but it has overloads for both double and float, and so the compiler cannot guess which one to use.
The problem is that the sqrt function does not take an integer as a argument. You will want to do
sqrt((double)n) or sqrt((float)n) to fix it.
If you included #include <math.h>, you can fix the error of: for (int i = 2; i <= sqrt(num); i++) by changing the sqrt(num) to a simple declared variable (like n, x, i... ) because sqrt(num) already used in the math.h library.
the function of sqrt() define as double sqrt(double) so you're input should be double or float.
To turning an integer variable to float without change the type use float( integer_Variable )
For example in you're code write i<=sqrt(float(num));

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