Thread: Help with word counting problem

Hi,
I am trying to write a small program that counts the number of times a 1 letter, 2 letter, 3 letter, 4 letter etc. words occur and print the frequency of their occurance as:

1 letter - 1
2 letter - 3
3 letter - 8
...
...

The program below seems to fail to print this. What am I doing wrong? Thank you for the help.

Code:

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
        int c;
        int inspace = 0;
        int wordlen = 0;
        int maxchar = 0;
        int words[] = {0};
        int i;
        int value = 0;
        while((c = getchar()) != EOF) {
                if(c == ' ' || c == '\t' || c == '\n') {
                        if(inspace == 0) {
                                inspace = 1;
                                if(wordlen > 0) {
                                        printf("%d\n", wordlen);
                                        ++words[wordlen-0];
                                }
                                wordlen = 0;
                        }
                }else{
                        if(inspace == 1) {
                                inspace = 0;
                        }
                        ++wordlen;
                }
        }
        for (i = 1; i<= 7; ++i) {
                printf("word size = %d Frequency = %d\n", i, words[i]);
        }
        return 0;
}

After compiling, I am issuing the following command on my Linux machine at the command prompt:

Code:

./a.out<text_file

where text_file contains the following text:

Code:

  a is it not not perfect perfect eightin

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

Andrew.

The most obvious problem is that you declare words to be an array of size 1.

Originally Posted by Tclausex

The most obvious problem is that you declare words to be an array of size 1.

Hi Tclausex,
Thank you.
I have a somewhat decent Perl background and I am just learning C.

In Perl, we can do something as:

Code:

my @words = ();

to initialize my array with an empty list.

How can I do something similar in C ?

I do not know the array size in advance but I have to initialize the array with a '0'.

Thank you.

-A

Yeah, Perl takes care of the memory allocation for you as you add to hashes and lists. In C, it's all on you.

If you can't specify the array size at compile time, check out

malloc - C++ Reference
calloc - C++ Reference
free - C++ Reference
FAQ > Casting malloc - Cprogramming.com
FAQ > malloc and calloc? - Cprogramming.com

Originally Posted by Tclausex

If you can't specify the array size at compile time, check out

You are wrong.
You can only specify the size of a classic array at compile time, you cannot it at runtime.
At runtime you can specify the size of an VLA (only C99).
Instead of an array you can use a memorybuffer and specify the size at runtime with realloc.

Originally Posted by BillyTKid

You are wrong.
You can only specify the size of a classic array at compile time, you cannot it at runtime.

Note, the if in my statement and that it's directed at the OP's restrictions.


But while we're revisiting this, why can't you specify the size of the words array at compile time? Wiki tells me that unless someone is going to sit down and spend a year typing in the chemical name for titin, I'm overly safe with an array of size 255. (But you wanted to learn dynamic memory right? )

I know what i say.