strcomp of 3 strings

[transgalactic2]

i want to find the smallest index of 3 string indexes
if i use strcomp then ill have to do 6 srcomps ?? its very complicated
is there any simpler way

and another problem is that when strcomp will compare these

000321
001230

it will say that 000321 is bigger

what to do??

[laserlight]

i want to find the smallest index of 3 string indexes
if i use strcomp then ill have to do 6 srcomps ?? its very complicated

You only need three comparisons. (EDIT: oh wait, I think you only need two comparisons.)

and another problem is that when strcomp will compare these

000321
001230

it will say that 000321 is bigger

I don't know what is strcomp, but strcmp("000321", "001230") will return a negative integer, meaning that "000321" is "less than" "001230".

[Sebastiani]

It's 'strcmp'. And it should work, since '000321' is lexicographically 'smaller' than '001230'. But then, why are you using a string-comparison function on numbers in the first place?

[transgalactic2]

strcmp returns the bigger lexicographic value
in our case 00321 is bigger

??

[laserlight]

strcomp returns the bigger lexicographic value

Right, so this is a non-standard function. Provide the function prototype and state exactly what are its pre-conditions and post-conditions.

[transgalactic2]

It's 'strcmp'. And it should work, since '000321' is lexicographically 'smaller' than '001230'. But then, why are you using a string-comparison function on numbers in the first place?

sorry i ment strcmp.
000321 is bigger then 001230

its like in the dictionary
cba will come after abcaaaaa
correct?

[matsp]

sorry i ment strcmp.
000321 is bigger then 001230

its like in the dictionary
cba will come after abc
correct?

but aaabcd comes before aabcde - the zero's count here!

--
Mats

[Sebastiani]

The third digit of the first string is '0' - in the second string it's '1'. Which do you think would be greater?

[laserlight]

its like in the dictionary
cba will come after abc
correct?

Yes, but the correct analogy is between aaadcb and aabcda. In the dictionary, aaadcb will come before aabcda. If the leading zeroes do not count, then perhaps you should be comparing integers instead of strings, or at least remove the leading zeroes first.

[transgalactic2]

the zeros do count you are correct
000321 is smaller then 001230
so if i have 3 string how to find their lexicographic order using only two checks
instead of 3!=6 checks??

[matsp]

It's a simple case of tracking the smallest (or largest, if you prefer - if this is for your "reading three files", keeping track of the largest is probably a bit better - since you want to move forward in all files that aren't the largest).

smallest = a;
if (smallest > b) smallest = b;
if (smallest > c) smallest = c;

I wrote that before I thought of the "largest is better" point - but the principle is the same, just different names and change the < for > .

--
Mats

[creeping death]

i want to find the smallest index of 3 string indexes
if i use strcomp then ill have to do 6 srcomps ?? its very complicated
is there any simpler way

and another problem is that when strcomp will compare these

000321
001230

it will say that 000321 is bigger

what to do??

so you have 3 numbers like 000321...as string? and you want to find smallest of the 3? is that it?

if thats your question, then why not use atoi() function?

#include<stdio.h>

int main()
{
    char a[7]="000321";
    char b[7]="001230";
    int n1,n2;
    n1=atoi(a);
    n2=atoi(b);
    printf("%d,%d",n1,n2);
}

[matsp]

so you have 3 numbers like 000321...as string? and you want to find smallest of the 3? is that it?

if thats your question, then why not use atoi() function?

#include<stdio.h>

int main()
{
    char a[7]="000321";
    char b[7]="001230";
    int n1,n2;
    n1=atoi(a);
    n2=atoi(b);
    printf("%d,%d",n1,n2);
}

But there is no need for that.

--
Mats

[transgalactic2]

i tried to find the smallest using these two operations
but still those "if" combination are too many
how to shorten the process of finding the smallest??

if(strcmp(f1,f2)>0)
	 {
        if(strcmp(f2,f3)>0)
		{
            //smallest is f3
		}
	 }

i dont have such option as minimum in strcmp there is only
>0 or <0

and it depends on many cases
so i have 6 if cases
how to shorten it?

[laserlight]

Think about using else.