Thread: Highest Number in Array Problem (Beginner)

You need to specify the size of the array. By leaving that empty you're saying to deduce the size from the number of elements in the initialiser, i.e., you only have an array of 1 element, so you cannot store more than that.

So, #define the size, then use it in the array declaration as well as to force the user to enter a length of the array that does not exceed this size.

No, you can ask the user to input the length of the array, but your array must be large enough for that length. This can be done in one of three ways:

• Declare a fixed size array large enough to accommodate whatever the valid range of user input for the array length, then only use the elements up to the length input. This is what I'm suggesting.
• Dynamically allocate an array of the length input by the user.
• Create a variable length array of the length input by the user. This means you have to declare the array after reading input by the user. However, although the variable length array feature is standard, it is an optional part of the standard, so I don't recommend it unless you are explicitly targeting a compiler that supports it.

I understand better now, and appreciate the practical advice. From here on, I will follow your first recommendation.

Nonetheless, to understand VLA a bit more, could you provide an example using part of my code? If not mine, happy to learn from another example. Thanks!

The relevant code is as follows:

Code:

#include <stdio.h>


#define LEN 100


int largest_element(int n, int a[n]);


int main(){
    
    int i, z, b[LEN]={0};
    
    printf("Enter the length of the array: ");
    scanf("%d", &z);
    
    printf("Enter the values of the array: ");
    
    for (i = 0; i < z; i++){
        scanf("%d", &b[i]);
    }
    
    largest_element(z, b);
    
    return 0;
}




int largest_element(int n, int a[n]){
    
    int hi = 0, i;
    
    for (i = 0; i < n; i++){
        if (a[i] > hi){
            hi = a[i];
        }
    }
    
    return printf("The largest element is %d\n", hi);
    
}

Originally Posted by laserlight

No, you can ask the user to input the length of the array, but your array must be large enough for that length. This can be done in one of three ways:

• Declare a fixed size array large enough to accommodate whatever the valid range of user input for the array length, then only use the elements up to the length input. This is what I'm suggesting.
• Dynamically allocate an array of the length input by the user.
• Create a variable length array of the length input by the user. This means you have to declare the array after reading input by the user. However, although the variable length array feature is standard, it is an optional part of the standard, so I don't recommend it unless you are explicitly targeting a compiler that supports it.

This would be a rewrite of your code to use variable length arrays properly:

Code:

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

int find_largest_element(const int elements[], size_t n);

int main(void) {
    size_t num_values;
    printf("Enter the length of the array: ");
    if (!(scanf("%zu", &num_values) == 1 && num_values > 0)) {
        fprintf(stderr, "Error: the length of the array must be a positive integer.\n");
        return EXIT_FAILURE;
    }

    int values[num_values];
    printf("Enter the values of the array: ");
    for (size_t i = 0; i < num_values; i++) {
        if (scanf("%d", &values[i]) != 1) {
            fprintf(stderr, "Error: could not read value #%zu as an integer.\n", i + 1);
            return EXIT_FAILURE;
        }
    }

    printf("The largest element is %d\n", find_largest_element(values, num_values));

    return 0;
}

int find_largest_element(const int elements[], size_t n) {
    int largest_element = 0;

    for (size_t i = 0; i < n; i++) {
        if (elements[i] > largest_element) {
            largest_element = elements[i];
        }
    }

    return largest_element;
}

Observe that:

• I renamed largest_element to find_largest_element since that is what the function does.
• Instead of printing the largest element, find_largest_element returns it. This means that you can easily reuse the function say, if you want a different text to use when printing the largest element, or if you want to do something with the largest element other than print it. Another reusable approach is to return the index of or a pointer to the largest element.
• I used size_t rather than int for the size/length of the array. Note that this means you have to compile with respect to C99 or later in order for the %zu format specifier to work, but since a variable length array (standardised in C99) will be used that is a given.
• I checked the return value of scanf, and printed appropriate error messages.
• I swapped the order of parameters for the helper function as it is more typical to pass the array and then the number of elements of the array.

I also left in place a bug with find_largest_element that you can discover if you test by entering only negative integers as the values.