Count the number of letter "a" on a sentence

We had a 20 minute seatwork, and nobody solved this riddle:


Write a source code in C language that asks a user to input a sentence, then (the program) displays the total number of letter
" a " on that particular sentence.

I believe its the lowercase letter "a"..

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Had I solved it, I would have got 100% on my recitation...

My idea was to treat the character as an integer then count them all,.. but ??

Does that make sense ?? How would I have coded that ??

We should all stick on the <stdio.h> library.. (that's what our Instructor told us) ...

Any suggestions or Codes to this matter ??

Here are some pointers on this

you can use a loop to run through your string and test each character. If it is equalled to 'a' you increment a variable previously initialised to 0.

Remember all characters are non-zero in value except for '\0' which you can use in an expression to terminate your loop

Im sorry,.. I couldnt find the right functions or techniques for this...

A loop,.. loop yes !! But I couldnt find the approach for counting
characters like integers,..

please share a little code,.. or little example !!

Thanks !!

You have the right idea. A letter is just a number.

Code:

#define     MAX_LENGTH      256

#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
    char sentance[MAX_LENGTH];      // Holds the sentance
    int x = 0;                      // Holds the current posistion for the search
    int y = 0;                      // Holds total number of a's found
    
    printf("Enter a sentance\n");   // Gets input
    fgets(sentance, MAX_LENGTH, stdin);
    
    while(sentance[x] != '\0') {    // Loop threw sentance
        if(sentance[x] == 'a')      // Chech to see if the current character is a a
            ++y;                    // It is, add one to y
            
        ++x;                        // Update posistion
    }
    
    printf("\nThere are %i letter a's in your sentance\n", y);  // Print answer

    return 0;
}

// Wonder why I did c++ comments in c code when I dont do c++

That's a real help dude...

I couldn't really imagine myself doing such a code (yet)..

but I have to research some stuff like that fgets() function, '\0'... and using [](i think they call it arrays),..

we haven't talked about such topics yet... and I just browse my books, and get some ideas..

Great Help... I'll have it up my sleeves,..

I think I'll have some ideas on how to count words, white spaces, or other syllables..

Thanks dude !!!!

cplusplus.com has a great reference section for the standard functions.

'\0' is NULL. Every string (should)ends with a '\0' to show thats the end.

>we haven't talked about such topics yet... and I just browse my books, and get some ideas..

Then, you shouldn't be happy with an answer like mart_man's. Thy find answer's that fit your knowledge.