Thread: can someone help me out? i have no idea what to do

So sorry to hear this. YouTube videos are notoriously horrible for teaching C effectively.

Short of learning C in a class given by a qualified instructor, I would recommend studying one of two books:

C Primer Plus (6th Edition) Stephen Prata author

C Programming: A Modern Approach, 2nd Edition K. N. King author

I think you need to study one of these books, and doing the exercises at the end of each chapter, before attempting the program in the OP.

Good luck, and feel free to ask us questions as you study the book!

Originally Posted by Terrance

Okay, I solved 90% of this problem. Here is the first half of my main, see if you can complete the rest. I will try to finish it as well (just to see how do to it myself, since I am also (re)learning c).

We are here to guide the poster on how to solve the problem they present, not to do the programming for them.

Having tried to learn C from painfully inadequate YouTube videos, the OP is not yet ready to attack the problem, even with the code you present. And by the way, you have not solved 90% of the problem.

Originally Posted by rstanley

We are here to guide the poster on how to solve the problem they present, not to do the programming for them.

Having tried to learn C from painfully inadequate YouTube videos, the OP is not yet ready to attack the problem, even with the code you present. And by the way, you have not solved 90% of the problem.

Hi, I only gave the code for the portion which was solved using advice on this message board: using string functions, using fgets, and using strstr. But what I showed was only half of my main, but I have 90% of the problem solved (but I did not post the rest of the code). I'm just missing a user defined function, and one of the strlen's in my code isn't counting correctly, so my replace word is getting cut off. But once I solve those two parts of this problem, I have the answer.

Hi, I only gave the code for the portion which was solved using advice on this message board: using string functions, using fgets, and using strstr.

You do realize that your "fixed" code has at least one place that invokes undefined behavior, right? You do know that you also have several places where you have possible buffer overrun errors waiting to happen, right (never use a function to retrieve a C-string that doesn't limit the number of characters retrieved)?

By the way what happens if your fgets() fails to retrieve a complete line? After all 100 characters for a line is fairly low these days.

Jim

Originally Posted by jimblumberg

You do realize that your "fixed" code has at least one place that invokes undefined behavior, right? You do know that you also have several places where you have possible buffer overrun errors waiting to happen, right (never use a function to retrieve a C-string that doesn't limit the number of characters retrieved)?

By the way what happens if your fgets() fails to retrieve a complete line? After all 100 characters for a line is fairly low these days.

Jim

I learned c in the academic setting close to 15 years ago, so I do understand what you mean. But I was merely trying to solve the problem, as I am relearning c myself. As I continue to get more studying time with c, and gain more experience, I probably won't make those types of mistakes. But for now, I'm a beginner again, unfortunately. But thank you for pointing out those "errors waiting to happen."

Originally Posted by Terrance

Hi, I only gave the code for the portion which was solved using advice on this message board: using string functions, using fgets, and using strstr. But what I showed was only half of my main, but I have 90% of the problem solved (but I did not post the rest of the code). I'm just missing a user defined function, and one of the strlen's in my code isn't counting correctly, so my replace word is getting cut off. But once I solve those two parts of this problem, I have the answer.

We provide words of advise to the OPs, so the OPs can solve the problem themselves! We point out errors in the code, and advise such as why the use of gets() and System("pause") are not recommended. We do NOT do the coding for them. The OP cannot learn to code C if another person posts their solution to the code. You are not the OP.

If you wish to code the solution yourself, offline as a learning experience, great!

The same is true of any subject.

Originally Posted by rstanley

We provide words of advise to the OPs, so the OPs can solve the problem themselves! We point out errors in the code, and advise such as why the use of gets() and System("pause") are not recommended. We do NOT do the coding for them. The OP cannot learn to code C if another person posts their solution to the code. You are not the OP.

If you wish to code the solution yourself, offline as a learning experience, great!

The same is true of any subject.

Sorry about that. I thought the problem was interesting, since I'm learning c and incorporating the c standard library myself, so I put some time into solving this problem as well. But I will try to make sure that I give advice to get the OP to solve the problem, rather than do the coding for them.

But thank you for pointing out those "errors waiting to happen."

Do you understand the Undefined Behavior problems (there are several)? This is really a much more serious problem than the possible buffer overflow problems. You need to thoroughly study the documentation for strstr(), fgets(), and scanf().

You should also understand what will happen to your code if the user enters a sentence is larger than the "limit" you placed in your fgets() call, especially if the "sentence" is larger than both the fgets() limit, and the size of the toReplace array. Remember the limit placed on the fgets() call only limits what the system will try to place in the array, not how many characters are actually entered by the user and those extra characters will try to go someplace.

Jim

Terrance is an idiot. It's not even C code. What a fool.

I wrote the code in visual C++ express, but the syntax is all c (I believe).

Nope, fails this on the very first line.

By the way you really seem to have no idea about the Undefined Behavior that I'm hinting at. Like I said you really really need to study the documentation for the standard functions you're trying to use, your calls to scanf() is invoking Undefined Behavior I doubt you can really tell me why. You need learn to properly initialize variables before you try to use them as well.

But again, I'm relearning c, so I am not too overly focused on specifics.

This is a very very very bad bad bad idea. Programming is all about specifics. If you don't understand the specifics of the problem your program will probably never specifically solve the intended problems.

Jim

I will studying the documentation better for the functions. Yes, I don't know the specifics of the undefined behavior.

Well using a decent compiler that is properly configured would probably be a good start. Trying to use the Microsoft C compiler is like using a fossil, I suggest you investigate getting another C compiler, one that truly supports the current C standards, instead of one that only truly supports C90. Also make sure you're actually using C, not some other hybrid language.

If you're compiler was properly configured, it should be warning you about most of the problems with your code. Also remember that using a variable before you have assigned a value to it invokes Undefined Behavior.

Lastly when you finally study the documentation be sure you pay particular attention to what happens when a scanf() format specifier doesn't match the type.

Jim