Thread: Help with reading in input

  1. #1
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    Help with reading in input

    Hey guys im new to this forum here.

    Anyway i was having a bit of a problem with a program im doing. See, i read data in line-by-line (not files) using fgets, following that i use strtok to break it into tokens.

    What i want to know now however is find out if the first token matches a word i specify.
    So for instance if i type in k 40 in my command line what should i do to verify that the token is a 'k'. I am thiking of using switch cases for this but am not really sure how to as they require integers.
    Following that how do i ensure that my next token is a integer rather than a character.
    Please give me a few hints as to what i possibily can do.

    Thank you all veyr much

  2. #2
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    assuming you know the first token is a single char then something like this
    Code:
    switch (*charptr)
    {   
       case 'a':
       //do something
       break;
       case 'b'
       //do something
       break;
    }
    For the Number look at atoi()

  3. #3
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    Hey thanks.
    But if i am reading it in line - by - line what should i put in my switch statement?
    switch(??)

  4. #4
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    Tokenizing a string breaks up the line by placing a NULL byte after each token so a tokenized string can be considered seperate strings.
    If you wanted to compare against a full word and not just a char you could use strcmp/ strcmpi like this
    Code:
    if (!strcmp(charptr, "word1"))
    {
       //do something
    }
    else if (!strcmp(charptr, "word2"))
    {
       //do something else
    }
    You would have to go thru each token in the input line untill you rached the end.

  5. #5
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    Actually i wanna compare the input with a character but i am not sure how to do that since i read in the input line by line.
    Thanks

  6. #6
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    In the switch statement I posted above charptr would be the pointer returned from strtok.

  7. #7
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    Yes, but what if a string was typed instead of just a character(for debugging purposes) would swithc still work?

  8. #8
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    Code:
    #define DELIM " "
     
     int main( int argc , ** argc)
    {
       char *word;
          
          
             /* get buffer of the right size */
             buf = (char *)safe_malloc((void *)buf,BUF_SIZE+1);
    
             /* read in data one line at a time */
             while((buf=fgets(buf,BUF_SIZE+1,stdin))!=NULL)
            {
                   word = strtok(buf , DELIM)
             }
    Safe_malloc is a fuction. how do i go from here?

  9. #9
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    sorry i think i got the code tags the wrong way round

  10. #10
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    Yes if the first charactors in your input where a single char followed by a deliminator.
    The code you posted above only checks the first token in each line.

  11. #11
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    Yep but thats what i need to do, check the first token in each line.
    However how do i use a switch to check if that token is equal to a certain character(regardless of if the token is a string or just a character)

  12. #12
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    *word ,if you get a compile error then (char)*word

  13. #13
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    Yep actually i do get a complie error of smth like caldnt compare integer or something of that sort
    anyway ill try that thanks

  14. #14
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    infact before the switch statement you should check that the token was a single char and not a word by looking at the length of the string pointed to by word.

  15. #15
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    > Yep actually i do get a complie error of smth like caldnt compare integer or something of that sort
    Here's a tip - take the next plane out of vagueworld and start being specific!

    1. Post the code you actually tried to compile - all of it, not just some paraphrased nonsense which would never compile anyway.
    2. Post actual error messages, not the mumble-fest you wrote.
    If you dance barefoot on the broken glass of undefined behaviour, you've got to expect the occasional cut.
    If at first you don't succeed, try writing your phone number on the exam paper.

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