Thread: How do I make difference between hours and hour (beginner)

Hi! - I'm only a beginner, but I need some help with this problem.

I'm writing a program that converts seconds to hours and minutes - That works fine! But if I write:
3700 seconds
It answers
That equals to: 1 hours, 1 minutes and 40 seconds.

I now want my program to write
1 hour, 1 minute and 40 seconds.

And if there is no hours at all it should only write
400 seconds equals 6 minutes and 40 seconds.

To sum up: The program shall write hour/hours minute/minutes second/seconds correct.

I've made one succesfull program, but it was written with 27 "if-statements" and I know there is a better way.

Code:

#include <stdio.h>

int
main(void)
{

  int sec, secs, minute, hour, rest;

    printf("Type in the number of seconds:");
    scanf("%d", &sec);

    hour = sec/3600;
    rest = sec%3600;
    minute = rest/60;
    secs = rest%60;
    
    printf("That equals to %d hours, %d minutes og %d seconds. \n", hour, minute, secs);

return (0);
}

So...

Any good advice on how to make the program know when to write hour or hours?

/Fedryan

You always print "hour" if there are one or more hours to be printed. So "hour" is the base word.

Let's call the int variable for this, "hour". So:

Code:

char plural='s';

if(hour>1) 
   printf("%d hours",hour);
else if(hour == 1)
   printf("%d hour",hour);

//and when done printing up seconds, be sure to
//add a newline to the end of the print statement.

//which can fit into a single line, using the compact 
//version of the above:

for(i=0;i<5;i++)
   printf("%d hour%c\n",i,ch=i==1?' ':'s');

The empty char is actually a space between the two single quotation marks. Otherwise it's an error, but it fits perfectly as the space between words. Run the above for loop, and you'll see how it works.

Code:

#include <stdio.h>

Code:

int
main(void)
{

  int sec, secs, minute, hour, rest;

    printf("Type in the number of seconds:");
    scanf("%d", &sec);

    hour = sec/3600;
    rest = sec%3600;
    minute = rest/60;
    secs = rest%60;
     
if(hour > 1)
    printf("That equals to %d hours, %d minutes og %d seconds. \n", hour, minute, secs);
else if (hour == 1)
    printf("That equals to %d hour, %d minutes og %d seconds. \n", hour, minute, secs);
else 
    printf("That equals to minutes og %d seconds. \n", minute, secs);




return (0);

not too sure though

Originally Posted by Salem

Try this

Code:

printf("That equals to %d hour%s\n", hour, hour == 1 ? "" : "s" );

Thanks, that was smart - But when there is "0 hour" it should not write anything at all, and this still does write "0 hour"

@Africanwizz, that is what I've allready done in my own try, but to cover all possible outcomes, you will have to write 27 lines (3x3x3), of "if-statements" because it is either hours, hour or nothing at all - minutes, minute or nothing at all - seconds, second or nothing at all.

@Adak That looks like a great idea! However, I do not understand what you do on the last lines?

"for(i=0;i<5;i++)" - Can you explain this?

Thanks for all your input

/Fedryan

The last loop in my post just printed out:

0 hours
1 hour
2 hours
3 hours
4 hours

Showing that it handled plural hours correctly, even for the zero hours.

Originally Posted by Salem

> And I dont get the \n and therefore $-sign in the ending. Any suggestions?
Print the newline separately, and unconditionally.

Ofcouse! Why didn't I think of that?

Thank you so much for the help! - My program runs almost perfect now. Now all I need; is a way to make it write "and" when there is more than two. For example:

That equals to 1 hour and 30 minutes and 2 seconds.
But if I write and in the the printf-line, I'm afraid that if there is 0 hours it will write:

That equals to and 30 minutes and 2 seconds (example)
- Which sounds stupid

The phrase "that equals to" is incorrect grammar. Correct would be "that is equal to", but that has a formal tone that doesn't sound modern. "that equals:" would be a better choice. Another choice would be the more concise "equals:" where the subject is implied.