Thread: Trouble with scanf

  1. #1
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    Trouble with scanf

    Hey all,

    I'm quite new to coding in general so go easy on me.

    I'm trying to replicate a game where entering numbers will perform different actions, where the first number will indicated what kind of action and following numbers will indicate to what extent.

    E.g entering "1 2 3 4" would mean go up (1) 2(2) spaces and right(3) 4(4) spaces.

    So far I have been able to perform an action when the user inputs 2 different numbers e.g "1 and 2". However, I'm am also required to be able to accept 4 numbers at once by a user e.g "3 3 3 3".
    I have tried changing my scanf("%d %d", &a, &b) to 4 %d's however this then requires me to enter 2 more numbers and subsequently my code doesn't work. This is also looped, so the user can perform different actions again and again.

    To reiterate, if I enter 2 integers it should perform a certain if statement I wrote. If I enter 3 integers a different action. And likewise for 4 numbers in one input. The user is not asked how many numbers they would like to input either.

    Any help would be appreciated.

    As a note, I've only learned if and else statements and loops, as well as printf and scanf and functions.

    Thanks all!

  2. #2
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    We usually handle this kind of thing by first reading the entire line as a string, and then using sscanf to "scan" the numbers from the string. All the scanf functions return a count of the number of fields that they filled.
    Code:
    #include <stdio.h>
     
    int main()
    {
        char line[200];
     
        while (fgets(line, sizeof line, stdin) != NULL)
        {
            int d1, n1, d2, n2;
            int nfields = sscanf(line, "%d%d%d%d", &d1, &n1, &d2, &n2);
     
            if (nfields == 2)
            {
                printf("==> %d %d\n", d1, n1);
            }
            else if (nfields == 4)
            {
                printf("==> %d %d %d %d\n", d1, n1, d2, n2);
            }
            else
            {
                printf("Only enter 2 or 4 numbers.\nTry again.\n");
            }
        }
     
        return 0;
    }
    This allows lines like "1 2 3 4 5 6" where it will only read the first 4 numbers and ignore the rest.
    Also like "1 2 hello 3 4" where it will read only the first 2 numbers and ignore the rest of the line.
    If detecting bad input like that is important than you need to do a little more.
    A little inaccuracy saves tons of explanation. - H.H. Munro

  3. #3
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    Is this right?
    Code:
    int nfields = sscanf(line, "%d%d%d%d", &d1, &n1, &d2, &n2);
    Maybe:
    Code:
    int nfields = sscanf(line, "%d %d %d %d", &d1, &n1, &d2, &n2);

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by flp1969 View Post
    Is this right?
    The format specs that read ints and floats and the format spec "%s" all skip initial whitespace so there's no difference in functionality.
    Maybe your version is more readable, though.
    A little inaccuracy saves tons of explanation. - H.H. Munro

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