Thread: Beginner needs some help (started today)

Originally Posted by tomtom1

i simply dont know what i should do, therefore i will give up. thanks for the help anyways

Well, that's your choice.

The thing is, I don't understand why you say that you don't know what you should do. I mentioned a while loop and the checking of the return value of scanf to compare it with 1 in the loop condition:

Code:

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void)
{
    int count = 0;
    int input;
    while (scanf("%d", &input) == 1)
    {
        ++count;
    }
    printf("%d numbers were read\n", count);
    return 0;
}

Notice that my example program has nothing about sum, or about the arithmetic mean ("midpoint"). It is a demonstration of one way of reading integers from standard input until EOF (or a read error) is detected. By getting this right first (after all, it is easy to count the numbers as you are entering them and then compare your count with the result that was printed), you can be more confident that if there's a bug later, it is most likely not because you were reading too few or too many numbers.

Once you are sure about the count, you can add the part about computing the sum. Again, test: that way, if there's a bug later, it is most likely not because you were computing the sum wrongly. Once you have both count and sum, computing the arithmetic mean should not be a problem, and if it is a problem, chances are the bug lies with that computation, not elsewhere.

What material are you using to learn programming in C?

I dont have anything at the moment, currently searching for things that are very beginner friendly. As i mentioned I never programmed before, so its really difficult. I just jumped into the wild.

So do i need another loop for summing the numbers up?

Yes i agree, but i want to finish this since i tried some stuff today ( for some hours). Dont want them to be purely wasted

ps i ordered a really good book!

I received a private message:

Originally Posted by tomtom1

So we set the loop for counting the entries, do we need a loop in the loop to count the numbers, or another loop after it? Or do we need a loop at all? I think maybe a for loop now?

If by "count the numbers" you actually mean "sum the numbers", then no, you can do that in the same loop as you read the numbers.

ah, its working now!

To make your code readable, you need to format it properly. One of the important aspects of formatting is indentation:

Code:

#include <stdio.h>
  
int main(void)
{
    int count = 0;
    int input;
    int sum = 0;
    int i = 0;
    double avg;
 
 
    printf("Enter your numbers:\n");
    while (scanf("%d", &input) == 1){
        ++count;
        if (i < input){
            ++i;
            sum = sum + i;
        }
        avg = sum / count;
    }
    printf("%d Number(s) entered\n", count);
    printf("The sum is %d\n", sum);
    printf("The avg is %0.2f\n", avg);
    return 0;
}

Now, what is the purpose of the variable named i?

/edit Got it. Thank you very much for your help!

Post your current code. It sounds like you have integer division when you want floating point division.