FGETS from text to array

Hey guys,

I need to access a text file and store the data into a 3 dimensional array.

I'm having issues getting the info into an array, from there I can manipulate the text as needed. But the first step is stumping me.

Code:

#include <stdio.h>
	int main(void)
	{
        int count = 0;
        char text[50][50][21];
        
    		FILE *ptr_file;
    		char buf[1000];

    		ptr_file =fopen("proj4.txt","r");
    		if (!ptr_file)
        		return 1;

    		while (fgets(buf,1000, ptr_file)!=NULL){
        		text[count] = fgets(buf,1000, ptr_file);
        		count++;
            }
		fclose(ptr_file);
		getch();
    		return 0;
    		
    		
	}

Look up the strcpy() function ...

A couple of things:

1. How is the data stored in your file and what is the framework behind the need for a 3d array. Usually if you are just reading in lines of text an array would be 2d, e.g. [NUMLINES][LINESOFTEXT]. If the data is structured in a certain way in your file you could use a fgets-sscanf combination, or fscanf.

2. You actually wind up reading in two lines from your file before you try to save it(in red). In addition I am not sure what you are trying to do with your array(in green), did this code compile?

Code:

while (fgets(buf,1000, ptr_file)!=NULL){
        text[count]=fgets(buf,1000, ptr_file);
        count++;

I'm actually goign with a different approach:

Code:

void get_words(){
    int ch, i = 0, j = 0, k = 0;
    char ch_holder;
    
    while ((ch = getc(fp)) != EOF) {
      
          ch_holder = ch;
          if(!isalpha(ch)){
              if(iscntrl(ch)) {
                    j++;
                             
              }
              if(isspace(ch)) {  
                     j++;                  
                     k = 0;
                  }
              if(isdigit(ch)){
                     j++;
                     k = 0;
                  }    
              if(ispunct(ch)){ 
                     k++;
                        
              }   
          }      
          if(isalpha(ch) && !isspace(ch) && !ispunct(ch) && !iscntrl(ch)){
              ch_holder = tolower(ch);                   
              textArray[i][j][k] = ch_holder; 
              if(textArray[i][j][k] == '\0'){ k--; } 
              k++; 

          }
    }
}

but still getting some weird errors in my array, can't seem to figure out how to avoid it storing certain characters in an array. Still going through the logic and understanding how to approach this. ... tips would be greatly appreciated. As the output is looking like this:
1: information => 11
2: technology => 10
3: => 0 <-- this part here is what i'm trying to avoid and just store regular characters instead of these null spaces.
4: => 0
5: => 0
....

You don't actually need ch_holder. Just use ch. Also:

Code:

          if(isalpha(ch) && !isspace(ch) && !ispunct(ch) && !iscntrl(ch)){

If it is alpha, then obviously it is not punct, space, cntrl. Did you mean: NOT isalpha?


Quzah.

no it doesn't really do anything, had that in there before i added the other code. I wanted it to store the alpha's only. Thanks for the catch. but it doesn't resolve my issue.

"weird errors" doesn't tell us anything. What is textArray defned as, and what do you think you are doing here:

Code:

textArray[i][j][k] = ch_holder;

Input string: "::11aa"

Code:

ispunct so k = 1
    you didn't actually do anything with k = 0
second if does nothing, because it is punct
ispunct so k = 2
    you didn't actually do anything with k = 1
same as before, but with k = 2 and k = 3 for the numbers
isalpha = true, so skip first iff
    textarray[ 0 ][ 0 ][ 3 ] = ch
    k = 4
isalpha = true, so skip first iff
    textarray[ 0 ][ 0 ][ 4 ] = ch
    k = 5

When in doubt, walk through it on paper.


Quzah.

Yeah i've been trying. Will give it another go around you cleared a few things up! thanks quzah!

Code:

void get_words(){
    int ch, i = 0, j = 0, k = 0, q = 0;

    
    while ((ch = getc(fp)) != EOF) {
      
          
          if(isspace(ch) || iscntrl(ch) || isdigit(ch) || ispunct(ch)){
              q = 1;              
          }
          if(isalpha(ch)){
              if(q == 1) { j++; k=0;}
              ch = tolower(ch);                   
              textArray[i][j][k] = ch;
              k++; 
              q = 0;

          }
    }
}

You still aren't doing anything with most of your array's cells, which leads me to question why you are using a 3D array for this. If your file has "Hello World!" in it, and nothing else, how do you expect your 3D array to look at the end?


Quzah.

The way he broke it down was as follows:

[i] = lines
[j] = words
[k] = characters

but for the project i don't see the necessity in that. Do you?

We are just storing the text into arrays, sorting through it doing different things, like finding unique words => put those into a different array, and calculate the mean, min, max of the words from the text file.

[ line 0 ][ word 0 ][ characters of "Hello" ]
[ line 0 ][ word 1 ][ characters of "World" ]

So what about spaces, and punctuation, where do those go? Where would the ' ' and the '!' go?

Quzah.

We are simply doing a word counter, ignoring all punctuation and digits

Originally Posted by Oonej

[i] = lines
[j] = words
[k] = characters

but for the project i don't see the necessity in that. Do you?

Ahhh! I must admit I've been looking at your code for about 10 minutes trying to figure out what on earth you want a 3 dimensional array for.

I don't see the benefit. It sounds like you just want an array of words (so a 2D array). Then you can just loop through them figuring stuff out. Much easier to understand, too.

The fact that you've been asked to use a 3d array implies that next you might be asked to figure out the same stats per-line. So then you have a set of arrays of words... meh. It's a bit wasteful.

Anyway, to your code:
What is q meant to represent?

I think you're trying to do too much with too little code.
You have 3 dimensions: line, word, character.
A newline means increment i.
A new word (a space) means increment j
Punctuation means continue on without doing anything
Alpha characters need to be stored, and k incremented.

So I think you need at least that many "if" statements in your loop.

You should also mark the end of each word with a '\0' terminator if you want to use any string functions or printing functions. Otherwise the functions will access the garbage beyond the end of the word.
And I guess you'll need to mark the end of line somehow too, maybe just a 0 value.

Will you be able to do all the statistics at once? If yes, then there isn't really a reason to use 3D, since you won't need to remember all this:

[ line 0 ][ word 0 ][ characters of "Hello" ]
[ line 0 ][ word 1 ][ characters of "World" ]

That would only be helpful if for some reason the user got to control when certain statistics where calculated.