Thread: A3K4 << how many alpha characters and sum of digits?

  1. #1
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    A3K4 << how many alpha characters and sum of digits?

    So I have to write a program counting the sum of digits, and the number of characters in a string... it looks like this. Oh, and it has to use corecursive functions, so that's why I used it if it seems inappropriate for this task.

    Code:
    /*Corecursive Functions 11/29/11 */
    
    
    #include <stdio.h>
    #include <string.h>
    #include <ctype.h>
    
    
    void count_alph(char * word, int i, int alphacount, int digitCount);
    void sum_digit(char * word, int j, int alphacount, int digitCount);
    
    int main()
    {
    
    char word[100];
        /*String input prompt*/
        printf("Input the word to be checked: \n");
        scanf("%s", word);
        
        count_alph(word,0,0,0,0);
    }
    
    void count_alph(char *word, int i, int alphacount, int digitCount)
    {
    
    while (i < strlen(word))
    {
        if (isalpha(word[i]))
        {
            alphacount++;
            i++;
            }
        else
            sum_digit(word, i, alphacount, digitCount);
            }
        
            printf("There are %d letters. ", alphacount);
            
    
    
            
            
    }
    
    void sum_digit(char *word, int j, int alphacount, int digitCount)
    {
    
    while (j < strlen(word))
    {
        if (isdigit(word[j]))
        {
            digitCount += (word[j] - '0');
            j++;
            }
        else
            count_alph(word, j, alphacount, digitCount);}
            
            
        printf("The sum of the digits is %d. ", digitCount);
        
    }

    For some reason, when I input "b2b", it loops indefinitely, only printing "There are 2 letters." thousands of times. It's supposed to say: "There are two letters. The sum of the digits is 2."

  2. #2
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    You've entered the recursion twilight zone. Perhaps someone who understands what exactly is happening can explain it, but you need to have a conditional return statement at the top of each function.
    Code:
    if( i >= strlen(word) ) return ;
    ...
    if( j >= strlen(word) ) return ;
    Otherwise, your recursion will never unwind.

    You'll need to change some of your other logic, but that should end the infinite looping.

  3. #3
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    Oct 2011
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    Thanks man. That actually didn't work for me (or maybe I just didn't adjust my logic accordingly). But I got it to work by inserting break statements into the else statements. I'm still not sure why it needed those, but whatever. I'll keep investigating. Thanks for your reply.

  4. #4
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    Well, notice that the logic flow changes as soon as I changed your while loop to an if(). So you've lost your looping. Change the following if() that was in your original while loop TO a while loop and remove the "else". No breaks needed.

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