Floating point checking problem

Hi, I'm new in C, and I'm stuck in my C project. Here is a Staff Salary checking, I don't know how to check the input value is valid, like entering 'nothing' or characters which is not numbers.

Code:

---

{
float salary;

printf("Salary : ");
scanf("%f",&salary);

... how to check ...

}

---

I know how to check value for characters, but really don't know which function can be used for float.

Please advise, thanks!

Most implementations of scanf() will reject the first non-numeric character in the input stream because of the "%f" format specifier. So if you were to enter fg.ab as an answer, scanf will return 0.0000

One way to test the input stream is to use a char datatype, then check the data. See ctype.h If it's okay, then convert to float.

You could always read the FAQ.

Quzah.

Rather than using scanf, you can have greater control over error checking by using fgets to read an entire line and then parsing it with strtod. Here is an example of a validation function for floating-point values:

Code:

---

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

/*
 * Validate a string for floating-point input, save
 * the value in 'result'.
 *
 * Returns:
 *  0 - Failure, 'result' is either HUGE_VAL or 0
 *  1 - Successful validation, 'result' contains a valid double
 *  2 - Extraneous characters, 'resut' contains a valid double
 */
int validate_float ( char *line, double *result )
{
  char  *endp;
  size_t len = strlen ( line );
 
  errno = 0;
  *result = strtod ( line, &endp );
  if ( errno == ERANGE || endp == line )
    return 0; /* Real error */
  if ( endp != line + len && *endp != '\n' )
    return 2; /* Extraneous characters */
  return 1;
}

---

It isn't bulletproof, but good enough for most uses.

Ok, I just grap some idea in the FAQ section. I plan to use isdigit or isalpha, but somehow it always got the same error, saying "cannot convert 'char*' to 'int'.

Code:

---

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include (ctype.h>

int main(void)
{
  char wage[10];
  float i;
 
  printf ("Enter your number: ");
 
  if (fgets(wage, 10, stdin) != NULL)
  {
    if (isalpha(wage)) printf("\nits not a number");
    else
    i = atof(wage);
    printf ("\nEnter okay %f", i);
  } 
 
  return(0);
}

---

How to make it work if using isalpha() ? I only need to know whether the value contains characters.

Thanks

The line
if (isalpha(wage)) ...
is in error. isalpha requires a character input, not a pointer to a character. You must test each character in the string in a loop.

The following code probably isn't the best way to do what you want but it works ok. The function isalpha takes a single character as it's argument. You were trying to send isalpha an entire string all at once.

Code:

---


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

#define MAXLINELENGTH 100

int main(void)
{
  char wage[MAXLINELENGTH];
  float i;
  int j;
  int flag;
   
  printf ("Enter your number: ");
 
  if (fgets(wage, MAXLINELENGTH, stdin) != NULL){
    if (strlen(wage)>10){
        printf("Warning: That was a very long entry for a wage!\n");
    }
    for (j=0; j<MAXLINELENGTH && (flag=isalpha(wage[j]))==0 && wage[j]!='\0'; j++);
   
    if (flag!=0){
      printf("\nits not a number");
    } else {
      i = atof(wage);
      printf ("\nEnter okay %f", i);
    }
  } 
  return(0);
}

---

oh thanks. that helps a lot. know how to do it now. but I wanna ask, what does '\0' of wage[j]!='\0' means?

The last character of a string array is ALWAYS an ASCII zero character. It's how all code finds the end of a string.

ASCII zero terminated strings are usually called "null-terminated" because the name of the ASCII zero character is nul.