Where do I start?

**RavUnRex** · 11-16-2005

I'm in an introduction to C Programming class, and I'm completely lost!

I am trying to write a program that takes words from a text file and prints each one on a seperate line of an output file followed by the number of letters in the word. Any leading or trailing punctuation must be left out. When all the text has been processed, I have to display on the screen a count of the words in the file.

I am not looking for someone to write this program out for me, but where do I get started? I know nothing about fopen...? This is frustrating me. Please help as much as possible! TIA

**Prelude** · 11-16-2005

I am trying to write a program that takes words from a text file and prints each one on a seperate line of an output file followed by the number of letters in the word. Any leading or trailing punctuation must be left out. When all the text has been processed, I have to display on the screen a count of the words in the file.

This is in an introductory class? How far into it are you? The way you're talking suggests that you've been thrown to the wolves after a few days, but the above assignment wouldn't be given until you knew enough to actually write it. That suggests that you slacked off in class, didn't listen, and now you're in over your head.

>but where do I get started?
I usually start with this:

Code:

#include <stdio.h>

int main ( void )
{
  return 0;
}

>I know nothing about fopen...?
Do you have a book? I don't know of a book on C that doesn't give you enough information to work with files.

**dwks** · 11-16-2005

fopen takes two arguments. The first one is the filename, the second one the mode. Among other things, the mode can be "r" to read a file (which will fail (ie, return NULL (0)) if the file doesn't exist), and "w" to write to a file (beware that this truncuates the file, ie, if it exists, it's deleted).

fclose() should be called on a file when you're done with it.

Example:

Code:

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {
    if((fp=fopen("filename.ext", "r")) == NULL) {
        printf("Can't open file. It may not exist.\n");
    }
    else {
        printf("File was opened.\n");
        fclose(fp);
    }
}

Note that you could read the filename from the user (not by using gets(), though).

Once a file has been opened, you can read from it with fgetc and fgets. fgetc (or getc, which is a macro implementation of fgetc) reads a single character from a file, and fgets returns a string. fgetc return EOF if the end of the file has been reached (EOF = End Of File).

Code:

void read_from_file(FILE *fp) {
    int c;  /* must be an int to hold EOF */

    while((c = fgetc(fp)) != EOF) printf("%c", c);
}

Read a C book for more information. Or search google. (That's how I got all those links.)

**RavUnRex** · 11-16-2005

Originally Posted by Prelude

This is in an introductory class? How far into it are you? The way you're talking suggests that you've been thrown to the wolves after a few days, but the above assignment wouldn't be given until you knew enough to actually write it. That suggests that you slacked off in class, didn't listen, and now you're in over your head.

I'm definately in over my head! I'm glad I changed from CS to Industrial Engineering, I couldn't handle four more years of stuff like this. I love math but this is beyond me.
I don't slack off in class, The professor just goes too fast for me. She goes through slides and doesn't explain it enough. So, I then have to spend time teaching myself. I've been doing pretty well so far: 100's on the projects, and an 85 and 86 on the two tests, but I just found out I have an assignment due tomorrow. Ignorance/poor planning on my part... I know.

Most of the people in that class understand what they are doing... so I guess I'm the minority. I once said "I regret taking this class." and everyone thought I was crazy... "This class is easy!" they say.

**dwks** · 11-16-2005

You can use the isalpha() function in <ctype.h> to see if a character is a letter. (There are also corrosponding functions isdigit(), islower(), and isupper() (for upper and lowercase).)

**willc0de4food** · 11-16-2005

looky looky
mm...just a note, in the above example, fp was never declared. so

Code:

int main(void) {
    if((fp=fopen("filename.ext", "r")) == NULL) {
        printf("Can't open file. It may not exist.\n");
    }
....

should be more like

Code:

int main(void) {
FILE *fp;
    if((fp=fopen("filename.ext", "r")) == NULL) {
        printf("Can't open file. It may not exist.\n");
    }
....

**dwks** · 11-16-2005

Whoops.

Can you try to write your program now?

**Prelude** · 11-16-2005

>She goes through slides and doesn't explain it enough.
This is probably the most common problem in a classroom environment. You're there to learn and your teacher is there to teach you. If you don't understand something, raise your hand and ask for clarification. I'd say that half of the people who have problems simply didn't ask questions that they should have. The other half are lazy bums.

**ExxNuker** · 11-16-2005

You're lucky to have a professor who has a grasp of the english language well enough for you to at least understand the words that are coming out of her mouth. Always remember that your professors have PhDs and probably have been working in these areas for years and most of the time take for granted that they are teaching people who have little or no programming experience.
And, don't think that you're going to escape programming by switching majors, any engineering school worth it's salt will require you to take a programming course, it will continue to haunt you throughout your career. Trust me, I graduated with a degree in Nuclear Engineering/Engineering Physics and all i do all day is write code and software to facilitate my calculations.
Stick with it and you'll get it eventually. If you aren't using it, try and pick up the programming book by Dietel and Dietel for whatever language you are learning. They always explain things throughly and with the assumption that you know 0!

**willc0de4food** · 11-16-2005

I think the C programming class i took used a book by Dietel... it was called "C How to Program" and it had a section for C, C++, and then a smaller one for Java. except the only time i opened the book in the class was when we had to type out one of the examples and modify it a little ;]
but my instructor liked the book a bit.

**Prelude** · 11-16-2005

>take for granted that they are teaching people who have little or no programming experience
And in many cases, the professors also have no programming experience.

It's at the point where employers can be wary of a PhD because it suggests you have book knowledge but no real practical experience. There's a huge difference between classroom programming and real world programming.

**RavUnRex** · 11-16-2005

Thanks for all the feedback... I think I've got most of it figured out.

As far as the class goes... My professor is brilliant when it comes to programming. She knows everything very well, but I just feel she doesn't know how to transmit her information to us. She is so much better at programming than we are, it's nearly impossible to teach us what she knows. I, almost, would rather have someone who didn't know as much, as long as they explained things in a way I could understand.

The same thing goes for the math department at my school... it depends on the professor. My college algebra professor was brilliant but didn't make sense and I got a B. My pre-calculus professor is brilliant but can teach in a way everyone understands and I have a solid A. And I know my algebra professor didn't just effect me, nearly everyone felt the same way.

Anyways, I just wanted to rant for a second. I'll stick it out and figure out what I'm doing. Thanks for the input.

**RavUnRex** · 11-16-2005

Ok, this is what I've got so far... But this seems to only be half of what I need.
I have not figured out how to display the words on seperate lines, or count the number of letters and number of words... any help perhaps?????

Code:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <ctype.h>
#include <stdafx.h>

#define size 65

int main(void)
{
	char input[size],
		output[size];
	char a;
	int words=0, end=1;
	FILE *inp,
		*outp;

	printf("Enter read file\n");
	for(scanf("%s", input); (inp=fopen(input, "r"))== NULL; scanf("%s", input))
	{
		printf("Can't open %s\n", input);
		printf("Re-enter file name>  ");
	}

	printf("Enter write file\n");
	for(scanf("%s", output); (outp=fopen(output, "w"))== NULL; scanf("%s", output))
	{
		printf("Can't open %s\n", output);
		printf("Re-enter file name>  ");
	}
	a=getc(inp);

	while(a != EOF)
	{
		if(isalpha(a) || isdigit(a))
		{
			putc(a, outp);
			end=1;
		}
		else if(isspace(a) && end)
		{
			end=0;
			fprintf(outp, "n");
			words++;
		}
		a=getc(inp);
	}
	printf("\nThere were %d words.", words);
	fclose(inp);
	fclose(outp);
	return(0);
}

**RavUnRex** · 11-17-2005

Can anyone help me put this together?

Code:

	a=getc(inp);
	int mycounter=0;

	while(a != EOF)
	{
		if(isalpha(a) || isdigit(a))
		{
			putc(a, outp);
			end=1;
			mycounter++;
		}
		else if(isspace(a) && end)
		{
			end=0;
			fprintf(outp, "n");
			words++;
		}
		putc( what goes here?)
		//*a=getc(inp);*//
	}
	printf("\nThere were %d words.", words);
	printf("\nThere were %d letters.", mycounter);

I added the "mycounter" to keep track of the letters, and I added a few other things in bold. Now I need to display the words on seperate lines in the output file... I asked the professor, and she told me to put in the putc( part, but I forgot what I'm supposed to add!!? Any ideas?

**dwks** · 11-18-2005

C How to Program is an excellent book.

putc.

BTW, you might not want to call your variable inp. inp is a macro on some compilers. (Like DJGPP.)

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