Thread: find parse error on line 24 reading from a file using structures

im trying to read employee information from a file using structures but im having problems with getting the file to open and read in the information

Code:

// Write a programt that inputs (at most 50) records from a sequential file
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
struct employee // employee structure definition
{
        char last_name[15];
        char first_name[15];
        unsigned month;
        unsigned day;
        unsigned year;
        float annual_salary;
        char dept_code;
        double phone_number[12];
};



int main(void)
{
        FILE *employeePtr; // file pointer to employee document

        int result;// used to test whether fread read any bytes

        struct employee = {Beast, Savory, 05,12,1995,350000.00,b,382-747-6139};   // : parse error before `=' token


        if ((employeePtr=fopen("employee.dat","rb"))==NULL)// fopen opens the file; exits if the file does not open

{
        puts("file could not be opened\n");
}
        else
{
        printf("file did worked\n");// prints statement if the file did open and worked
}
}

How does it not work?

Oh, and please indent your code properly. Your main function looks like a mess so it is hard to tell at a glance if your braces match.

I formatted your code:

Code:

// Write a programt that inputs (at most 50) records from a sequential file
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

struct employee // employee structure definition
{
    char last_name[15];
    char first_name[15];
    unsigned month;
    unsigned day;
    unsigned year;
    float annual_salary;
    char dept_code;
    double phone_number[12];
};

int main(void)
{
    FILE *employeePtr; // file pointer to employee document
    int result; // used to test whether fread read any bytes
    // employee data with default information:
    struct employee = {Beast, Savory, 05, 12, 1995, 350000.00, b, 382 - 747 - 6139};
    if ((employeePtr=fopen("employee.dat","rb"))==NULL)
    {
        puts("file could not be opened\n");
    }
    else
    {
        // prints statement if the file did open and worked:
        printf("file did worked\n");
    }
}

Then compiled it:

Code:

test.c: In function ‘main’:
test.c:22:21: error: expected identifier or ‘(’ before ‘=’ token
     struct employee = {Beast, Savory, 05, 12, 1995, 350000.00, b, 382 - 747 - 6139};
                     ^

The error that you got was due to a failure to provide a name for the variable. Furthermore, you need to quote your string and character literals:

Code:

struct employee employee_data = {"Beast", "Savory", 05, 12, 1995, 350000.00, 'b', "382-747-6139"};

I am assuming that you will change this:

Code:

double phone_number[12];

To this:

Code:

double phone_number[13];

Originally Posted by jimblumberg

Shouldn't that actually be changed to: ?

Code:

char phone_number[13];

Yes.

errors I got
jammel.c: In function `int main()':
jammel.c:24: cannot convert `const char*' to `double' in initialization
jammel.c:24: excess elements in aggregate initializer

Code:

// Write a programt that inputs (at most 50) records from a sequential file
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
struct employee // employee structure definition
{
        char last_name[15];
        char first_name[15];
        unsigned month;
        unsigned day;
        unsigned year;
        float annual_salary;
        char dept_code;
        double phone_number[13];
};


int main(void)
{
        FILE *employeePtr; // file pointer to employee documen
  
        int result;// used to test whether fread read any bytes
        
        struct employee employee_data = {"Beast", "Savory", 05, 12, 1995, 350000.00, 'b', "382-747-6139"};           
        
        if ((employeePtr=fopen("employee.dat","r"))==NULL)// fopen opens the file; exits if the file does not open
        {

        puts("file could not be opened\n");
}
        else
{
        printf("file did worked\n");// prints statement if the file did open and worked
}
}

Originally Posted by ashley1nonly

errors I got
jammel.c: In function `int main()':
jammel.c:24: cannot convert `const char*' to `double' in initialization
jammel.c:24: excess elements in aggregate initializer

As jimblumberg noted in post #5, I made in a typographical error in post #4 by forgetting to change double to char. For your part though, you should not take my code as if I were an oracle. Rather, faced with the compile error, you should have investigated it and fixed it.

Originally Posted by ashley1nonly

why would I char the phone number

Look at the code in post #1. For the phone number, you wrote: 382-747-6139. This can be simplified to: -6504. Is the phone number supposed to be -6504.0?

Originally Posted by ashley1nonly

isn't char only used for letters like names and things like that but not numbers like the phone number

An array of char can be used to store a null terminated string. A phone number, despite the word "number" as part of the name, is a string. Even if you remove the dashes, which you might do to try and normalise the phone number into a common format, it is still conceptually a string rather than an integer or a double (although you arguably could store most phone numbers in an unsigned long long after stripping them of non-digit characters).