Thread: Interpreting whitespace characters from standard input

I'm relatively new to C programming, and I have a pretty trivial question.

I'm trying to convert all whitespace characters from standard in to a single space. I understand that my code won't work as '\n' will be read character by character and not as a whole.

How might I change this to interpret '\n' and others like '\t' as a single whitespace character?

Thanks.

Code:

#include<stdio.h>
#include<ctype.h>
#include<string.h>


int main(){

    int c;
    c = getchar();

    while(c != EOF){

    if(isspace(c))
        c = ' ';

    putchar(c);
    c = getchar();

    }
    return 0;
}

Consider using a flag to keep track of whether you're in a sequence of white space or not. Don't print anything until you are out of the sequence.

If that's not enough of a hint, it helps with problems like this to work through some examples by hand, with paper and pencil. Pick several sample strings. Go through them character by character, and convert each one to a string where all white space is compressed into one single space char. Pay careful attention to all the little steps and details you do. Write them down in plain English. Translate that to pseudo code and finally into real code, writing small chunks (5-10 lines max) and testing often.