Thread: Quick hint on assignment (Recursion in C- Beginner)

Trying to a quick program that tells how many instances of a certain character there are in a word. It seems like I'm on the right track, but with some hitches.

Code:

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

unsigned howMany(char c, const const * s);

int main(){

char *s = "Mississippi";
char c = 'o';
    printf_s("There are %u '%c's", howMany(c, s), c);

unsigned howMany(char c, const const *s) {
    if (*s == '\0') return 0;
    else if (*s != c) { s++; howMany(c, s); }
    else (*s == c); {
        s++;
        return 1 + howMany(c, s);
    }
}

There's also an extraneous semicolon on line 16. That effectively creates and empty body for the else, and the code on lines 17-18 is always executed.

Yeah, unfortunately it's an assignment where we have to use recursion instead of any loops. And yikes, the missing curly bracket was some sloppy copy and pasting on my part.

Does the [code]
if (*s!=c) [\code] have to return a value? I was under the impression that as long as we had a command afterwards, it was fine. I'm thinking I may less knowledgeable than I thought I was...

Question about the semicolon: I'm using Visual Studio 2015 and for some reason they insisted on the semicolon. I thought that that was improper syntax as well, but the program would only run with that semicolon. Is that a design specific to VS?

Else does not need a condition. If you want to write one anyway for clarity's sake, then make it a comment. The compiler just thinks that's what you want to do on the else path.

Duh, I totally missed another obvious point. You can't have a condition on an else unless it's an else if. But you probably don't need an else if, just an else.

Haha, thanks! That makes sense.

Aaaaah, got it! Thanks, guys.