Thread: Printing words to console screen

hello, i am writing a payroll system or a attempt at it anyway. i have put in records in the system via a addrecords function then when to edit it, i want the user to be able to see which record they will be changing after choosing the number to edit, I am very new to programming, just looking for some advice for this.

heres the code for the part of the edit function i have a problem with excluding the rest of the program

Code:

		printf("Enter record number to be editted\n");
		scanf("%d", &employee.num);

		//moving file pointer to position of record user requested
		fseek(writeptr, (employee.num-1) * sizeof(struct employee_data), SEEK_CUR);
		
		fscanf(writeptr, "%-10d%-15s%-15s%-12d%-12.2lf%-8d%-12.2lf%-12.2lf%-12.2lf%-12.2lf%-14.2lf%-12.2lf\r\n" , employee.num, employee.first_name, employee.last_name, employee.id_number, employee.pay_rate, 
		employee.year, employee.sthours, employee.one_and_half_hour, employee.double_hour, employee.gross_pay, employee.deductions, employee.net_pay);
		
		printf("%-10s%-15s%-15s%-12s%-10s%-10s%-12s%-12s%-12s%-12s%-14s%-12s\r\n", "number", "First name", "Last name", "id no.", "pay rate", 
		"year", "sthours", "1.5 hours", "2x hours", "Gross pay", "deductions", "net Pay");
		printf("%-10d%-15s%-15s%-12d%-12.2lf%-8d%-12.2lf%-12.2lf%-12.2lf%-12.2lf%-14.2lf%-12.2lf\r\n" , employee.num, employee.first_name, employee.last_name, employee.id_number, employee.pay_rate, 
		employee.year, employee.sthours, employee.one_and_half_hour, employee.double_hour, employee.gross_pay, employee.deductions, employee.net_pay);

the problem is that it reads the records from the file and then prints it to the screen but it does not print the last and first name , it prints all the only numerical fields. it writes the information fine to the file with the first and last name there but not when reading from file. Can anyone help me with this? if needed i can upload the entire code so you can look through it or the entire edit function but it is pretty long...

thanks in advance.

You aren't using the & in front of your number input - you need to fix that.

I am unfamiliar with, your use of the formatting numbers, being in the fscanf(). Those are useful for printing, but all those minus signs are very strange looking in an fscanf() call. Outside of making your fscanf() line of code, very long and odd looking, they are not necessary. That is for output.

If that isn't the problem, post back enough code and input example, so we can run it and see what's doing, there.

Stop!

Your problem is just with the lack of an ampersand '&' in your scanf() for numbers. All numbers need the address of operator, before their name in a scanf() line of code.

Strings do not - the string name is it's own address.

scanf("%d", &employee.num);

That is right. The fscanf() calls for numbers, which lack an ampersand, are wrong.

but i dont have any problems with the numbers its the strings i have a problem with... the strings wont output to the screen.
ok will add the & to the fscanf() thanks.

Originally Posted by Shadow20

but i dont have any problems with the numbers its the strings i have a problem with... the strings wont output to the screen.
ok will add the & to the fscanf() thanks.

Could be just luck, I'm not sure, but I KNOW that you can't change a variable with scanf() or fscanf() without having passed the address to those functions.

If you just want to print out or compare a variable, you don't have to have it's address. But if you want to change it's value, using the scanf() family of functions, you must have it's address.

I can only guess as to why it's working for you right now, somewhat.

I added in the ampersands in the fscanf here:

Code:

fscanf(writeptr, "%10d%15s%15s%12d%12.2lf%8d%12.2lf%12.2lf%12.2lf%12.2lf%14.2lf%12.2lf\r\n" , &employee.num, employee.first_name, employee.last_name, &employee.id_number, &employee.pay_rate, 
		&employee.year, &employee.sthours, &employee.one_and_half_hour, &employee.double_hour, &employee.gross_pay, &employee.deductions, &employee.net_pay);

but it still gives the error of not showing the output for the strings last name and first name... any idea why the strings arent printed?

Add this, and tell me what it prints:

printf("%d", sizeof(employee.first_name));

I run it and it output 8.. i temporarily removed my printf statements to see it clear
i placed it right after the fscanf statement.

not sure what you mean by input file, sorry
but here is the first 3 lines from the edit function

Code:

        int editchoice=1;
	
	//initialize file pointer to edit files
	FILE *writeptr;
	
	//define struct variable employee
	struct employee_data employee;

You ARE reading in data from a file, correct?

yes, i made the file with another part of the program then read from it in this function. the file is named payroll.txt

I need the first 3 lines of that file