Thread: how to search for keywords in a character array

Hello!

I'm working on a project for a beginner C programming class (and I am very, very much a beginner.) in which an e-mail is read into a character array and then scanned for each of 30 common keywords found in spam mail. For each occurrence of one of the keywords, I have to add a point to the message’s 'spam score,' and display the spam score at the end.

I'm stuck on how to search for multiple keywords and keep track of them. Our textbook and teacher never really addressed it.

The following is what I have coded so far:

Code:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

int main()
{
	// 30 keywords to search for
	const char *string1 = "won";
	const char *string2 = "bank";
	const char *string3 = "gift";
	const char *string4 = "free";
	const char *string5 = "cheap";
	const char *string6 = "vicodin";
	const char *string7 = "viagra";
	const char *string8 = "drugs";
	const char *string9 = "nude";
	const char *string10 = "hot";
	const char *string11 = "enlarge";
	const char *string12 = "enhancement";
	const char *string13 = "money";
	const char *string14 = "cash";
	const char *string15 = "save";
	const char *string16 = "singles";
	const char *string17 = "coach";
	const char *string18 = "casino";
	const char *string19 = "debtfree";
	const char *string20 = "xanax";
	const char *string21 = "pharmacy";
	const char *string22 = "loans";
	const char *string23 = "winner";
	const char *string24 = "oxycodone";
	const char *string25 = "mortgage";
	const char *string26 = "congratulations";
	const char *string27 = "insurance";
	const char *string28 = "DVDs";
	const char *string29 = "discount";
	const char *string30 = "valium";
	
	char email[500]; // the array to store the e-mail
	int spamcount; // counter

	printf("Type in your e-mail: \n");
	scanf ("%449s", email);


// in here is where I'm stuck
	
	return 0;
}

I came up with this code after seeing a strstr function in our book that was the closest thing I could find to any kind of search. Am I on the right track at all?

My pseudo-code for what I want to do is essentially:

Search the e-mail for string1,
if string1 is found, spamcount++,
else, break.
Search the e-mail for string2,
if string2 is found, spamcount++
else, break

And so on until I've searched for all 30, at which point I'll print out my final spamcount.

I just can't figure out how to code those searching and comparing instructions into C language. Does anyone have an example or tips? I'd really appreciate it!

(I admit I might be going about this the wrong way entirely. Our teacher mentioned something about functions? But I've never understood functions, so I was trying to find a way to code the program without them. We aren't required to use them.)

If you don't understand functions, then find some tutorials on line and practice. They're not too complicated, and very much worth your while. We have one on this site here. You should Google for more tutorials and start practicing using them.

For your problem, I would use an array of spam words and loop through it to search:

Code:

#define N_SPAM_WORDS     30
char *spam_words[N_SPAM_WORDS] = {
    "won",
    "bank",
    ...
    "valium"
};
...
read in email_text
loop through each item in spam_words
    if spam_words[i] found in email_text
        spamcount++;

Thank you for the suggestion of putting the search terms in an array, I hadn't been aware I could do that. But are there any examples or tutorials for how to search one array with individual parts of another? The closest I've found is strstr, but now that I'm using an array instead of 30 separate strings, I'm not sure strstr will work.