Thread: Counting words, lines, and characters in a text file

Hello. I am new to programming and I am kinda of stuck on this code I have written. I am trying to count lines, words and characters in a file. I am having sorta of trouble counting the words and have been trying to figure it out for a couple of hours now. I know to some it may be easy.

Here is the code.

Code:

int main (int argc, char *argv[]){
    FILE *input;
    int character, newword,newline, state;
    int c;

    state = OUT;
    character  = newword = newline= 0;
    input = fopen(argv[1], "r");

    if ( input == NULL){
        printf("Error! Can not read from file\n");
        exit(-1);
    }
    if (argc !=2){
        printf("Not enough arguments provided\n");
        exit(-1);
    }

    if (argc>2){
        printf("Too many arguments were provided\n");
        exit(-1);
    }


    while ((c = fgetc(input)) != EOF){

        if ( c == '\n'){
            state= OUT;
            newline++;
        }

        if ( c >='a' && c<= 'z'){
            state = IN;
            character++;
        }

        if (c >='A' && c<= 'Z'){
            state = IN;
            character++;
        }

        if ( c >= '0' && c<='9'){
            state = IN;
            character++;
        }
        else {;}

            if (c == ' ' ||c == '\n'|| c == '\t'){
                state = OUT;
                newword++;
            }

        }
    printf("The number of lines: %d\n",newline);
    printf("The number of words: %d\n", newword);
    printf("The number of characters: %d\n", character);
    fclose(input);
}

In the text file, there is the following text,

J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter

It is suppose to print out:
The number of lines: 1

The number of words: 6

The number of characters: 21


However, my code makes it print out

The number of lines: 1

The number of words: 4

The number of characters: 21




Any suggestions?
Also, another bug I found is when I leave the text file with just

!

my code makes it seem as if ! is counted as a word.

Any suggestions to fix this as well?
Everything else is good, only the number of words is the problem.

Thank you!

Since newline =0, I'm surprised you get printout #lines = 1, shouldn't it be 0 for your .txt file?
In a similar vein, #words should be newword + 1 since 2 words are separated by one ' ', etc.
int state = OUT? Since you're using state as a flag, better have int state = 0
also, char c smells better (at least to me)

Code:

int main ()


{
    FILE *input;
    int character, newword, newline, state;
    char c;


    state = 0;
    character  = newword = newline = 0;
    input = fopen("F:\\test_file.txt", "r");


    if ( input == NULL){
        printf("Error! Can not read from file\n");
        exit(1);
    }
    


    while ((c = fgetc(input)) != EOF){


        if ( c == '\n'){
            state= 0;
            newline++;
        }


        if ( c >='a' && c<= 'z'){
            state = 1;
            character++;
        }


        if (c >='A' && c<= 'Z'){
            state = 1;
            character++;
        }


        if ( c >= '0' && c<='9'){
            state = 1;
            character++;
        }
        else {;}


            if (c == ' ' ||c == '\n'|| c == '\t'){
                state = 0;
                newword++;
            }


        }
    printf("The number of lines: %d\n",newline+1);
    printf("The number of words: %d\n", newword+1);
    printf("The number of characters: %d\n", character);
    fclose(input);
}

Originally Posted by Salem

Some points.

> input = fopen(argv[1], "r");
You should complete ALL your argc checks before doing this.
If argc is wrong, then the code is already broken.

You do a lot of
state = IN
state = OUT

but nowhere do you do
if ( state == IN )
if ( state == OUT )
why are you bothering with assigning state, if you never use the result?


Your empty else statement looks very suspect.

Hey. I used the state == IN and out because I remember saying it from a book that I read and used that as a template, but instead I used it for a file.

Originally Posted by codexer77

Hey. I used the state == IN and out because I remember saying it from a book that I read and used that as a template, but instead I used it for a file.

The point is that you set state to IN or OUT at various points, but you never test it in an if statement, therefore it's totally useless. Turning up your compiler warning level may warn you about a variable that is "set but not used". On gcc you can get full warnings with the flags -W -Wall -pedantic.