Thread: Function to randomize what's inside #RANDOM(1|2|3|4)#

Hi, I use those forums for about 2 weeks when I first start codding in C but I think this is the time to register .

I have a problem with my code:

Code:

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


char replacerand(char *str);


int main() {
  char str[] = "f hgfgh #RANDOM(David Lai|9123 4567|Dav|valu e1|val ue2|valu e3|value4|value5)#\n"
  "fdslk gfdlkgfd #RANDOM(mom1|fgds|ggg|gfdgfd)# jkfgjk hgkj\n";



  replacerand(str);
}


char replacerand(char *str) {
     int i;
     int count = 0;
     char string33[200];
     char string34[200];
     sscanf(str, "#RANDOM(%s%[^)]", string33, string34);


     sprintf(str, "%s%s", string33, string34);
     printf("\n\n\n--- %s ---\n", str);
     const char delims[] = "|";
     char *result = NULL;
     char **store = NULL;
     char **tmp = NULL;
     char *name = NULL;
     char *telephone = NULL;
     char *nickname = NULL;
     int randomnum;
     int totalval;


     result = strtok(str, delims);


     while (result != NULL) {
          free(tmp);
          tmp = malloc(count * sizeof(char *));
          for (i=0; i<count; i++) {
               tmp[i] = store[i];
          }
          free(store);
          store = malloc((count + 1) * sizeof(char *));
          for (i=0; i<count; i++) {
               store[i] = tmp[i];
          }
          store[count] = result;
          //printf("%s", store[1]);
          count++;
          //printf(".%s\n", result);
          result = strtok(NULL, delims);
     }
     int f;
     srand(time(NULL));
     //srand(time(NULL));
     randomnum = rand() % count;
     printf("%s %d %d\n", store[randomnum], count, randomnum);
     free(tmp);
     free(store);
     return 0;
}

First I'm trying to transform every #RANDOM(whatever) into arr to a random value delimited by a "|".

I'm just not ableto transform them all since the sscanf() do not seems to understand what I'm trying to do.

Anyone ?

Firstly, any code that attempts to modify a string literal yields undefined behaviour (for which a common practical symptom is a crashing program). Your main() function is passing a string literal to replacerand() which, in turn, attempts to change it.

That issue aside (which is a fairly significant one, but not hard to avoid) why not just do the steps of (1) search for the string "#RANDOM(" (2) search for the closing ')' (3) extract the text in between (4) parse that text in between (5) replace the text "#RANDOM(<whatever>" with whatever is required? No need to use any of the functions like sprintf(), sscanf(), at all .... simple loops will work. Given that you will be replacing "#RANDOM(<whatever>" with some substring of <whatever> you should not need to use dynamic memory allocation either for scratch space. At worst, some of those loops might replace simple functions from the standard library .... but if you can't write code by hand to do what you want, you won't be able to work out how to use standard library functions to do it either.

PCRE - Perl Compatible Regular Expressions
Link with the pcre, and you can use the same Perl expressions to match things in your C code, as you do in your Perl code.

There's a bit of book keeping to set things up, and making sure there is space for all the matched sub-expressions.