Beginner C programming Please Help!

This program is going to be hawaiian word spell check,
Written Hawaiian also has fairly simple spelling rules for determining if a word is a valid word in the language (even if the meaning is unknown). They are:

* All words contain only vowels and Hawaiian consonants.
* All words end in a vowel.
* Within a word, two consonants NEVER appear adjacent.

Write a program which reads lines of Hawaiian text from a file (using redirection, so you will not need to prompt), and lists each word found on a separate line indicating whether it is a valid Hawaiian spelling or it is invalid. Any non-letter characters (e.g. white space or punctuation characters) in the file should be treated as delimiters, but otherwise ignored and not appear in the output.
ex: it will read something like this:
this is not hawaiian word.
and print:
this it is invalid
is it is invalid
not it is invalid
hawaiian it is valid
word it is invalid
================================================== ===================
I have written a program called is_vowel and is_h_consonant to check if they are.
I also have written a program called delimit_p to see if the input is a delimiter.
This is the program I have so far, it does not work correctly.

Code:

main() { char ch; char last_ch; int inword; int hi; /* we are not in the word at the beginning */ inword = FALSE; /* we assume everything is not hawaiian word */ hi = FALSE; /* set last character as a vowel */ last_ch = 'a'; /* while there are more characters */ while((ch = getchar()) != EOF) { /* if not in word and not a delimiter */ /* then must be the beginnning of a word */ if (!inword && !delimitp(ch)) { inword = TRUE; /* we are in a word now */ } if(inword) { if(is_vowel(ch)) { hi = TRUE; } else if(is_h_consonant(ch)) { if((is_h_consonant(ch) && !is_h_consonant(last_ch)) || (!is_h_consonant(ch) && is_h_consonant(last_ch))) { hi = TRUE; } } else if(delimitp(ch) && is_vowel(last_ch)) { hi = TRUE; } else { hi = FALSE ; } putchar(ch); } last_ch = ch; ch = getchar(); if (inword && delimitp(ch)) /* if in word and a delimiter */ inword = FALSE; /* we are no longer in a word */ if(hi) {printf("\t It is valid!");} /* if it is correct spelling, print it's valid */ else {printf("\t It is invalid!"); } /* if not, print it is invalid */ putchar('\n'); /* print new line character */ hi = FALSE; } }

Super thanks for whoever that will spend time helping me on this!!!

Hmm. Well, first of all, I would highly recommend that you indent your code slightly better. It really does make things easier to spot. (Here is a nice guide on that.)

What problems are you having? (I'm assuming that your functions for checking if a char is a vowel or consonant are correct.)

Thank you!
My problem is for example I input:"kaleo"
it says
k it is valid (because it's a consonant)
l it is invalid(because it's a consonant too and right after one)
e it is valid (it's a vowel)

my is_h_consonant and is_vowel works perfect, I have a driver to test it.
My program first skip the 2nd, 4th, 6th ... words.
also it reads characters instead of the whole word.

So, it's skipping every other character for consonants?

it's skipping every other character, doesn't matter what it is..........
i wish it would understand me more... >_<
so frustrating!

Code:

if (!inword && !delimitp(ch))

What is the function delimitp(char)?

this is where delimitp located.

Code:

#include <stdio.h> #include "tfdef.h" #include "chrutil.h" /* Function returns TRUE if c is a delimiter, otherwise FALSE */ int delimitp(char c) { if(whitep(c) || punctp(c)) return TRUE; return FALSE; } /* Function returns TRUE if c is a white space, else FALSE */ int whitep(char c) { if(c == '\n' || c == '\t' || c == ' ') return TRUE; return FALSE; } /* Function returns TRUE if c is a punctuation, else FALSE */ int punctp(char c) { if (c == '.' || c == ',' || c == ';' || c == '?' || c == '!') return TRUE; return FALSE; }

Code:

while((ch = getchar()) != EOF) { /* if not in word and not a delimiter */ /* then must be the beginnning of a word */ if (!inword && !delimitp(ch)) { inword = TRUE; /* we are in a word now */ } if(inword) { if(is_vowel(ch)) { hi = TRUE; } else if(is_h_consonant(ch)) { if((is_h_consonant(ch) && !is_h_consonant(last_ch)) || (!is_h_consonant(ch) && is_h_consonant(last_ch))) { hi = TRUE; } } else if(delimitp(ch) && is_vowel(last_ch)) { hi = TRUE; } else { hi = FALSE ; } putchar(ch); }

Where do you set last_ch?

Code:

main() { char ch; char last_ch; int inword; int hi; /* we are not in the word at the beginning */ inword = FALSE; /* we assume everything is not hawaiian word */ hi = FALSE; /* set last character as a vowel */ last_ch = 'a';

Your output statements, that say whether a word is valid or not, are part of the main while loop and will print something every iteration: Once inword is true it is never made false. That will need to be fixed.

Figure out the code that can toggle inword. Perhaps:

Code:

if (is_vowel(last_ch) && delimitp(ch)) { inword = FALSE; continue; /* this line could be eliminated if this if-statement is the last one */ }

And when inword is false you can print the output based on hi.

If you are in a word, I prefer to assume you are in a valid hawaiian word until it breaks one of your rules.

. . . you need to set it in the loop as well. That's my point.

Otherwise, it's always checking against a vowel, no?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nightowl

. . . you need to set it in the loop as well. That's my point.

Otherwise, it's always checking against a vowel, no?

Line 38, Op's post... although i did indent the program before looking.

Well, yeah. I should probably learn to do that. ;)

The problem is, I guess, that it's skipping characters, then?

Kind of hard to do, considering you're not working with an array here . . .

Is it just me, or do you have two getchar()s?

Code:

while((ch = getchar()) != EOF)

Code:

ch = getchar();

>> Well, yeah. I should probably learn to do that. ;)
It helps :)

>> The problem is, I guess, that it's skipping characters, then?
One of them, I think I spotted the other one.

>> Kind of hard to do, considering you're not working with an array here . . .
I'm actually a bit impressed though. OP may not know it, but he's attempting to use a finite state machine.

>> Is it just me, or do you have two getchar()s?
You're not seeing things. You correctly pointed that out. :)

Quote:

I'm actually a bit impressed though. OP may not know it, but he's attempting to use a finite state machine.

Me? I'm very impressed. ;)

I think the double getchar()s are the main problem with skipping here.

Change that around a little. Perhaps using a while(1) loop, and either break or continue based on the input from the second getchar().

Quote:

while((ch = getchar()) != EOF)

ch should be declared as int - otherwise you could not distinguish EOF from the character with the code 0xFF

Isn't it already int?

Oh, whoops. My bad.

Yeah, getchar() returns an integer, and as vart points out, EOF is (usually) declared as -1. Therefore, if you typed in a 0xFF char (very unlikely unless you're piping input ;) ), it would read as EOF.

Not what you want.

Therefore, declare ch and last_ch as integers. ;)

hmmm. that's big help!
thank you so much!
i just saw that...
i am not really familiar with those character things, i think i will read the book more and spend a few more hours on this.
i'm thinking of making a IS_HAWAIIAN function and test it there, if its hawaiian then return true, if not return false
when it's true it says it's valid
when its false it says it's invalid
but then i won't be able to print the word again...

it's like a mess. oh..

this is my new idea:

in main:
while (num != EOF)
if !is_hawaiian, print invalid
else, print valid

in is_hawaiian:
ch=getchar()
putch(ch)
while white space, ch = getchar
while it is consonant or vowel
if ch and last ch is consonant, false;
if end of word, last isn't vowel, false;
true.

if (ch == EOF) return EOF
if not consonant and not vowel return false;

hope it works.!