Not copying blank space to new file and putting all characters on one line

Hello, I am trying to write a program that copies the 21st character of each line, excluding spaces. And if the line has less than 21 character to just copy the last character. So far, I can do all of that, but I just need to exclude the spaces and put all my results on 1 line in my new file. I just can't figure out what I'm missing. This is what I have so far.
whiteSpace is being used as true/false it is whiteSpace = 0; up top, by the way.

Code:

while ((curCh = fgetc(sp1)) != EOF){
        countCh++;

        if(curCh == ' ')
            whiteSpace = 0;
        
                if(curCh == '\n' ){
                    if (countCh < 21 && whiteSpace != 0)
                    fputc (preCh, sp2);

            countCh = 0;

        }
        
        whiteSpace = 1;
        if ( countCh == 21 && whiteSpace != 0){
            fputc(curCh , sp2);

Thank you!

At the moment, your indentation is misleading, which is a Bad Thing. You need to indent your code properly, e.g.,

Code:

while ((curCh = fgetc(sp1)) != EOF) {
    countCh++;

    if (curCh == ' ')
        whiteSpace = 0;

    if (curCh == '\n' ) {
        if (countCh < 21 && whiteSpace != 0)
            fputc (preCh, sp2);

        countCh = 0;

    }

    whiteSpace = 1;
    if (countCh == 21 && whiteSpace != 0) {
        fputc(curCh, sp2);

Furthermore, you should show the entire while loop, along with the declarations and initial values of variables involved.

Originally Posted by code_bunny

And if the line has less than 21 character to just copy the last character.

What if the line consists entirely of spaces?

See also here

Okay, that's the entire thing. If there's just a blank line then do nothing ... I just need it to ignore space characters ' ', and put all the characters one line.

Code:

while ((curCh = fgetc(sp1)) != EOF){
        countCh++;

        if(curCh == ' ')
            whiteSpace = 0;

        if(curCh == '\n' ){
            if (countCh < 21 && whiteSpace != 0)
                fputc (preCh, sp2);
                countCh = 0;

        }

        whiteSpace = 1;
        if ( countCh == 21 && whiteSpace != 0){
            fputc(curCh , sp2);


        }
        preCh = curCh;
    }

Originally Posted by code_bunny

Okay, that's the entire thing. If there's just a blank line then do nothing ... I just need it to ignore space characters ' ', and put all the characters one line.

Code:

while ((curCh = fgetc(sp1)) != EOF){
        countCh++;

You've said that you want to print the 21st character in the line excluding whitespace but right now you count every character in the line, regardless whether it is whitespace or not.

Code:

        if(curCh == ' ')
            whiteSpace = 0;

Why do you set whiteSpace to 0 when you come across a space?
Usually 0 means false and 1 means true.

Code:

        whiteSpace = 1;
        if ( countCh == 21 && whiteSpace != 0){
            fputc(curCh , sp2);

Since you've set whiteSpace to 1 just before the if, checking that it is not 0 is rather pointless.

Bye, Andreas

Thank you so much! Now it skips the the white spaces, but I seem to be having trouble with lines that have less than 21 characters on it. ><

Code:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int main (void){

    FILE* sp1;
    FILE* sp2;
    int curCh; // variable 1
    int preCh; // variable 2
    int countCh = 0; // variable 3;
    int whiteSpace = 0; // var4
    int closeStatus;
    
    printf("File copy has started\n");
    if (!(sp1 = fopen ("FILE1.DAT", "r"))){
        printf("Error opening FILES1.DAT for reading");
        return (1);
    }//if open
    if (!(sp2 = fopen ("FILES2.DAT", "w"))){
        printf("Error opening FILES2 for writing");
        return (2);
    }

    while ((curCh = fgetc(sp1)) != EOF){
        
        if (curCh != ' '){
            whiteSpace = 0;
            countCh++;
        }
        // this is where I'm having the problem
        if(curCh == '\n'){
            if (countCh < 21 && whiteSpace !=0 ){
                fputc (preCh, sp2);
                fputc (' ', sp2); }
            countCh = 0; 
        }

        whiteSpace = 1;
        if ( countCh == 21 ){
            fputc(curCh, sp2);
            fputc (' ', sp2);

        }

        preCh = curCh; 
        
    }        
    fputc ('\n', sp2);
    fclose(sp1);
    closeStatus = fclose(sp2);
    if (closeStatus == EOF)
    {
        printf("File close error.\a\n");
        return 201;
    } // if close error 

    printf("File successfully created\n");
    system ("pause");
    return 0;
}