Function and pointer problems

This is a nice little assignment my prof. decided to spring on us out of nowhere, (thanks prof. :rolleyes: ). But anyways what I need to do is
write a function that will search a string for any one of a given set of characters.

The idea is to locate the first character in the source string that matches any of the characters in the chars string. The function then returns a pointer to the place in source where the first match was found.

If none of the characters in source match any of the chars, then a NULL pointer is returned. If either argument in NULL, or either string is empty, then a NULL pointer is returned.

But I'm not allowed to use any of the library string routines (strcpy, strcmp, strlen, index, etc.) just pointers to manipulate them to get
the desired result. I'm still kind of new to both pointers, and functions, but I"m to figure simple and regular ones, like the ones shown in the tutoriols
on the site. But I can seem to figure out more complex ones like this one.

Code:

---

#include <stdio.h>


//The function Prototype that I have to use
char *find_char( char const *source, char const *chars );



void
char *find_char( char const *source, char const *chars )
{
    char  i; // using this to go through each string and look for the first
              // match
   
    for( i = source; i <= source; i++ )
        for( i = chars; i <= chars; i++ )
       
        if (i(source) == i(chars) // try to compare the strings not sure if the
                                            // syntax is correct
        return &i(source);
       
    else
        return NULL;
       
         
}

void main()
{
    char myString = abcdef;
    char nyString = ttyabn;


   
    char j;
   
    printf("The original strings %s\n", myString, nyString);
    *find_char(&myString, &nyString);
    printf("The first matching character is %s\n", j);
}

---

These are the errors I keep getting:



just-test.c:63: error: two or more data types in declaration of `find_char'
just-test.c: In function `find_char':
just-test.c:66: warning: assignment makes integer from pointer without a cast
just-test.c:66: warning: comparison between pointer and integer
just-test.c:67: warning: assignment makes integer from pointer without a cast
just-test.c:67: warning: comparison between pointer and integer
just-test.c:69: error: called object is not a function
just-test.c:69: error: called object is not a function
just-test.c:71: error: syntax error before "return"

just-test.c: In function `main':
just-test.c:81: error: `abcdef' undeclared (first use in this function)
just-test.c:81: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
just-test.c:81: error: for each function it appears in.)
just-test.c:82: error: `ttyabn' undeclared (first use in this function)

just-test.c:80: warning: return type of 'main' is not `int'

make.exe: *** [just-test.o] Error 1

Execution terminated


I'm still trying to figure this out now but any help anybody can give me will be well apprieciated. :)

If abcdefg is supposed to be a string literal, then try enclosing it in a pair of quotation marks. Also, 'myString', isn't. It's a single character. You meant to have a pointer there, or an array. You have a 'void' before 'char *' in your function definition. Remove it.

You know, if you actually read the errors and then your code, you'll get a lot further.


Quzah.

Well you really should listen to what your compiler is telling you. First up, main returns an int, so declaring it as void is wrong. When you call your function, find_char, it should not look like you had it:

Code:

---

*find_char(&myString, &nyString);

---

This would work:

Code:

---

find_char(&myString[0], &nyString[0]);

---

Though it is not as much idiom as this:

Code:

---

find_char(myString, nyString);

---

Ok, so with your function call straightened out, on to the function:

Code:

---

for( i = source; i <= source; i++ )

---

You assign 'source' to i - which happens to be an address. Of course this does not really work for you, because i is not actually a pointer variable, but a char. Then you test if i is less than or equal to source, which it is, because you just assigned source to i. Even if i was a pointer variable, this would not make a lot of sense, as you just assigned source to i, so of course they will be equal. And then the loop ends. So you need to rework that somehow.

You should try working out on paper the steps you need to take before you actually start trying to implement it in real code.

For the function proper, it might look something like this:

Code:

---

check if either source or chars are NULL
    if either are NULL, return NULL

---

After you have checked the pointers for NULL (you don't want to try dereferencing a NULL pointer) you can go ahead and see if either of the strings are empty:

Code:

---

check if either source or chars are empty
    if either are empty, return NULL

---

Then we can get on with comparing the characters in 'chars' to the characters in 'source':

Code:

---

while there is still a character in 'source'
      while there is still a character in 'chars'
            does the current char in 'source' match the current char in 'chars'?
                            if yes, return the address of 'source'
                            if no, then increment to the next character of 'chars' and check again
      none of 'chars' match the current character in 'source'?
              increment to next character in 'source'
              reset to beginning of 'chars' and start looking again
      no match found?
              return NULL

---

That should give you some ideas to think about. Also, when you want to compare actual characters, you need to dereference. So comparing 'source' and 'chars' you would do something like this:

Code:

---

if (*chars_pointer != '\0'
                            && *chars_pointer == *source) {
                                return source;

---

Without the '*' you are comparing addresses, and not the actual value stored there. Finally, once you get this thing working, you might be interested in experimenting with different ways of improving your alogrithm. The 'pseudo-code' I demonstrated is not the most efficient algorithm - there are more efficent ways of doing it, but different ways can be explored once you get this one figured out.

~/

Thanks guys for your help so far, I've got a better understanding of this but I still have a problem. I'm trying figure out how I can use char i to go througth the two strings and look for the first matching charactor. Right now for the first matching charactor I'm getting null.

Code:

---


char *find_char( char const *source, char const *chars )
{
    char  i; // using this to go through each string and look for the         
                // first match
             
    char sourc;
    char charr;
   
    source = &sourc;
    chars = &charr;
 
    if (*source == NULL || *chars == NULL)
      return NULL;
   
    if (sourc == NULL || chars == charr)
      return NULL;

   
 
   
 while (*source != NULL && *chars != NULL)
         
          if (*chars != '\0'
                            && *chars == *source)
                                return *source;

          else
              chars ++;
         
       
         
}

---

Code:

---


char* find_char(const char *src, const char *chrs)
{
int  i;



if ( ! src || !*src  || ! chrs || !*chrs )
  return(NULL);

while ( *src )
    {
      for ( i = 0 ; chrs[i] ; ++i )
          if ( *src == chrs[i] )
              return( (char*)src);
      ++src;
      }

return(NULL);
}

---