File I/O help for new programmer

[jayslilhunter]

I have a homework program that i need some help with.

I am supposed to read information from a file and sort it according to the id. the data in the file looks like this
1001 joe 100.50

the id is the first field the name is the second and the dollar amount is the 3rd. I have tried using fgets to read the information in. it works so far but i dont know where to go from there. I need to do some error checking on the data that is read in as well.. such as
id should be between 1000-9999
name should be 10 or less characters
id should be unique.

any help with this is appreciated..

[Thantos]

create a structure that stores the id, name, and dollar amount.

Then make an array of those structures.

After using fgets() use sscanf() to load the data into the structure.

to verifiy you could create a function kinda like this:

int verified (array_of_the_structure temp[], int index, int size)
{
  int unique=1;
  int counter;
  for (counter=0; counter < size; counter++)
    if ( temp[index].id == temp[counter].id )
    {
      unique=0;
      break;
    }
  return unique;
}

For sorting look up selection sort as it will be the easist for you to understand and implament at this point.

[jayslilhunter]

I forgot to mention that we arent allowed to use structures at this point. thanks for the suggestion though

[Thantos]

If you can use arrays then you can have one array for id, one for name, and one for dollar amount.

Same basic principle applies

[Stack Overflow]

Hi jayslilhunter,

Assuming you already have the file read in the buffer, I have some techniques that can do what you are looking for.

Use sscanf() .

#include <stdlib.h>

void main() {
	char	name[10], *buffer = "1001 joe 100.50";
	int	idNum;
	float	amount;

	// replace "buffer" with your input line

	sscanf(buffer, "%i %s %g", &idNum, name, &amount);
	name[10] = '\0';	// stop name at 10th byte

	printf("ID: %i\n", idNum);
	printf("Name: %s\n", name);
	printf("Amount: $%g", amount);
}

Code 1.1: Reading parts of a string

Now, to answer your question about the name being 10 characters or less, I made sure no matter how long the name is (max of 128) the name stops at the 10th byte setting it to the NULL Terminator.

Also you can read more information on sscanf() and printf()

Simply what sscanf() does is it looks for information inside a string, like integers, floats and etc... Also %i converts into an integer, %g into a float, and %s into a string. More format modifiers are explained on the above links.

Hope this helps,
- Stack Overflow

[Prelude]

>#include <stdlib.h>
You meant <stdio.h> I think.

>void main()
main returns int

>name[10] = '\0'; // stop name at 10th byte
You just wrote to memory you don't own. Anything could happen at this point.

I would go with something a little more robust:

#include <stdio.h>

int main ( void )
{
  char *buffer = "1001 joe 100.50";
  int id;
  char name[11];
  double amount;

  if ( sscanf ( buffer, "%4d %10[^0123456789] %lf", &id, name, &amount ) == 3 ) {
    if ( id > 999 )
      printf ( "ID: %d\nName: %s\nAmount: %.2f\n", id, name, amount );
  }

  return 0;
}

>the name stops at the 10th byte
The 11th character according to your code. Remember that arrays are 0 based, so the last valid element in an array of size 10 is at the 9th index.

[viaxd]

Can someone explain this line please:

if ( sscanf ( buffer, "%4d %10[^0123456789] %lf", &id, name, &amount ) == 3 )

I've seen this somewhere before, but just not sure what it means.

[Prelude]

>I've seen this somewhere before
You have my condolences.

>but just not sure what it means.
[^...] means to read the longest non-empty string of characters not between the brackets. [...] means to read the longest non-empty string of characters between the brackets. So %10[^0123456789] will read up to 10 characters as long as they are not digits and then terminate the string with '\0'.

[lightatdawn]

Direct replies to duplicate post here.