Help designing a "database"

[caduardo21]

Hi. One of my friends works at his sister's clothing store and about once a week I go over there to chat with him. I noticed they have a serious problem keeping their clients files organized because my friend spends about half an hour looking for a file when someone walks in and buys something or wants to pay something.
Just for fun, to help him and as a learning experience, I decided to try to write a program. I'm using a filing card they use at the store to base my program on. It has things like name, date, address, city, state, zip and phone number on it. I already got this part done and I validate every single piece of input so this part is really good. I'm also able to create a .clt file with that information on it, but this is where I need your help. How should I set up the files part? What I'm thinking is to create a file for each client and each file will have the clients name, ie John Smith.clt. I think that would be good since my program will have a option for looking for clients files and displaying them. What do you guys think about this?
Also, they do a lot of selling on credit and people pay like $30 a week and things like that. On the filling card there are also things like quantity, description and price. My other question is, how should I set up this part? Should I ask the user to input the number of items sold and then start a loop where he will input quantity, a little description and the price or should I just enter the loop and wait until he types "done" or something like that? Also, should I keep what a client bought on a different file or with their information? I'll attach the file my program creates and a picture of the filling card so you guys can understand better. Thank you and sorry for the long post.

[Brain Cell]

How about you use paragraphs in your post first? I might not be able to help , but you'll make it easier to read.

[xxxrugby]

This is how you can do your file called like your customer name!

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

int main()
{
    FILE *fp; char name[30]; char file[30]; int i = 0;
    printf("Insert name of customer : ");
    scanf("%s", &name);
    strcpy(file, name);
    strncat(file, ".clt", 4);
    fp = fopen(file, "w+");
    fprintf(fp, "Name was %s and file was called : %s", name, file);
    fclose(fp);
    return 0;
}

quazah what is your choice or what are you using to get the same input like in gets()

[quzah]

You should go look at the FAQ as to why gets is wrong.

Quzah.

[Brain Cell]

without gets() ofcourse.

*edit* i guess im 2 minutes late

[quzah]

That's one of the worst "here's my homework" write-ups I've ever seen.

Quzah.

[caduardo21]

This is not homework. Geez!
I just need ideas, that is all. I don't want any code

[rjv_rnjn]

How should I set up the files part?

In my opinion, one file per client is a good idea. This will help in getting the client summary/specifics at any point of time very easily. But there can be one master file which will store data about all the clients(their contact details etc as well as their credits). The file with the client name (eg. rjv.clt ) will store the details of purchases datewise.

Should I ask the user to input the number of items sold and then start a loop where he will input quantity, a little description and the price or should I just enter the loop and wait until he types "done" or something like that?

The more efficient thing (in terms of client interaction) would be to let the user keep on entering details and then press some key when done. Additionally, you should provide for some functionality so that cancel a transaction before commiting it.
Hope this helps.

[sand_man]

>>what is your choice or what are you using to get the same input like in gets()

fgets()
dont use scanf for strings