trouble with simple arrays

I have this assignment that I thought would be super easy, but for some reason I can't get it to work, can you give me some insight?

Code:

#include <stdio.h>

int main ()
{
char fName[12];
char lName[12];
float payRate[12];
float hours[12];
float salary[12];
int empNbr;
int i, n;
int a = 0;
int b = 0;

printf("Enter number of Employees");
scanf("%d", &empNbr);

 for (i= 0; i < empNbr + 1; i++)
 {printf("Enter Employee's First Name:");
 scanf("%c\n", &fName[a]);
     printf("Enter Employee's Last Name:");
     scanf("%c\n", &lName[a]);
         printf("Enter pay rate:\n");
         scanf("%f\n", &payRate[a]);
             printf("Enter hours worked:\n");
             scanf("%f\n", &hours[a]);
             /*     salary[a] = payRate[a] * hours[a];
                    a++;
*/
 }//for1

 for (n = 0; n < empNbr + 1; n++)
 {
   printf("\t First Name  \t Last Name \t Pay Rate \t Hours  \n");
   printf("\t fName[b] \t lName[b] \t payRate[b] \t hours[b] \n");
   b++;

 }//for2

 return 0;
}//main

it compiles, it asks for the first name, last name and prints the next 3 lines and then asks for the first name again.

How does it not work?

it asks for the number of employees and I can enter it.
it then asks for the first name, I enter it
it asks for the last name and when I enter it, it prints "what is payrate, what is hours, what is first name:
all without allowing me to enter pay rate or hours.

It probably has something to do with you telling scanf() to read a single character when the data is actually a person's name.

ahh, good catch, I changed it to a string but it didn't fix my problem. Also, I fixed the printf on the display portion \t %s \t %s instead of \t fName[b].

any thoughts on why this program is only asking for inputs on the name arrays and skips the floats?

Can you re-post the code to dhow us how you implemented this?

Code:

#include <stdio.h>

int main ()
{
char fName[12];
char lName[12];
float payRate[12];
float hours[12];
float salary[12];
int empNbr;
int i, n;
int a = 0;
int b = 0;

printf("Enter number of Employees");
scanf("%d", &empNbr);

 for (i= 0; i < empNbr + 1; i++)
 {printf("Enter Employee's First Name:");
 scanf("%s\n", &fName[a]);
     printf("Enter Employee's Last Name:");
     scanf("%s\n", &lName[a]);
         printf("Enter pay rate:\n");
         scanf("%f\n", &payRate[a]);
             printf("Enter hours worked:\n");
             scanf("%f\n", &hours[a]);
                salary[a] = payRate[a] * hours[a];
                    a++;

 }//for1

 for (n = 0; n < empNbr + 1; n++)
 {
   printf("\t First Name  \t Last Name \t Pay Rate \t Hours \t  \n");
   printf("\t %s \t %s \t %2f \t %2f \t %2f \n", fName[b], lName[b], payRate[b], hours[b], salary[b]);
   b++;

 }//for2

 return 0;
}//main

Remove the \n from your scanf() statements...

In addition to removing the \n from scanf statements, make sure you are reading to a string rather than a single character. scanf("%s", fName) not scanf("%s", &fName[a]); The %s format specifier does not turn a character into a string.

If you want to be able to read and later print out multiple strings, the char arrays need to be two-dimensional, not one dimensional.

An array of 12 char does not hold 12 strings.