what's wrong in this code?

I've put a code together, a simple one. It's supposed to search an array of pointers (I initialized it at the beginning).
each word is defined as any sequence of alphanumeric characters only:
"okij" - valid word
"good" - valid word
"good bye" - not valid word
"boat." - not valid word

Now this is what the code is suppoosed to do:
if a given word is too long (>10) then return 0
or
a word is considered correct if found in the array OR if it is a digit, OR if the word is defined properly (sequence of alphanumeric chars) then return 3

otherwise it is considered incorrect and returns 1

And it isn't working...why? please help

>if ( strcmp(word, *dictionary[i]) == 0)
should be
>if ( strcmp(word, dictionary[i]) == 0)

>for (j=0; j<= strlen(*word); j++)
should be
>for (j=0; j<= strlen(word); j++)
but in my opinion, you should store the length of the string in another variable and use that in the for statement. Doing it your way means strlen() is called each time you go round the loop (a performance thing, so your safe to ignore this for now if you wish).

In here:

Code:

for (i=0; i<count; i++)
{
	if ( strcmp(word, dictionary[i]) == 0)
		found++;
}

why not just change the found++ bit to return (somevalue);

Similarly, in here:

Code:

for (j=0; j<= strlen(word); j++)
{
	if ( isdigit( word[j] ) == 0)
		notNumber++;
}

change notNumber++ to return (somevalue);

But, hey what's this..... if it's not a number we've returned already, so how can we test if for being an isalnum() string? I think your logic is flawed here.

I think you should write down what tests you need to do on the string, then reorder them in to a sequence which allows you to perform them one at a time, and return as and when one fails. A couple may need to be combined with an if statement, so be careful.

In fact, thinking about it, according to your rules, a string is valid if it is full of alpha AND/OR numeric characters, so why not stick with using the isalnum() function.

But then again, in your program, you have a return value of 2, whereas this isn't mentioned in your criteria.

Does this help? Or am I babbling again?!

Originally posted by HOWY
Now this is what the code is suppoosed to do:
if a given word is too long (>10) then return 0
or
a word is considered correct if found in the array OR if it is a digit, OR if the word is defined properly (sequence of alphanumeric chars) then return 3

otherwise it is considered incorrect and returns 1

OK, so I was probably babbling a little to much on my previous reply, so here's some corrected code that does what you ask.

Code:

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

int check_word(char *word)
{	
	int i, len;
	
	/* Check length, if bad, return 0 */
	if (strlen(word) > 10)
		return 0;

	/* Check dictionary first, if found return 3 */
	for (i=0; i<count; i++)
	{	
		if ( strcmp(word, dictionary[i]) == 0)
			return 3;
	}

	len = strlen(word);	
	
	/* Now check to see if all characters are alnums.
		If not, return 1
	*/
	for (i=0; i < len; i++)
	{	
		if (isalnum(word[i]) == 0)
			return 1;
	}
	
	/* If we get here, the following is true
		- word is shorter than 10 in length
		- word is not in the dictionary
		- word is made up of all alnum characters
		Therefore, we return 3
	*/
	return 3;
}

If you have a large dictionary, I'd suggest swapping the function around a bit to improve efficiency. There's no point in checking a 1 million word dictionary for a 5 character string that is made up of all chars.