character occurrence program not working

Hi, the following program prompts the user to enter a few lines of string and a character as a search key and outputs the total number of times that character appeared in those lines entered. However the bug is that the program prints "Enter string" twice and then i can't enter the first string. How come?

thnx in advance

Code:

---

/* character occurence count */

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

int main()
{
  int  occurrenceCount = 0;
  char  *searchPtr;
  char string[ 400 ];
  char tempStr[ 150 ];
  int numLines;
  int i;
  char key;

  printf( "Number of lines to be inputted: " );
  scanf( "%d", &numLines );



  for ( i = 0; i < numLines; i++ ) {
      printf( "Enter string: " );
      gets( tempStr );
      strcat( string, tempStr );
  }

  printf( "Enter search character: " );
  scanf( "%c", &key );

  searchPtr = strchr( string, key );

  while ( searchPtr != NULL ) {
      ++occurrenceCount;
      searchPtr = strchr( searchPtr + 1, key );
  }

  printf( "\n\nTotal of occurrence character \'%c\' appeared in line(s) entered: %d\n\n",
          key, occurrenceCount );

  system( "PAUSE" );
  return 0;
}

---

Hey Nutshell,

The user is prompted to enter a number ("Number of lines to be inputted:") and scanf() puts the value into the variable numLines, but doesn't pull the carriage-return off the buffer (stdin). Then when you reach gets() ("Enter string:"), the carriage return causes gets() to grab an empty line.

Consider using fgets() to get data from the user.

i haven't learnt fgets() yet. Anyway to fix the problem using my original code?

thnx

the above reply was mine, forgot to log in...:rolleyes:

Yeah, a cheap trick would be to put in a gets() right after the scanf(). This would pull the carriage-return off stdin. If you are allowed to fflush(), that would be the proper way to clean up stdin.

Something like this, Nutshell:

Code:

---

printf( "Number of lines to be inputted: " );
scanf( "%d", &numLines );

/* Here is the new statement */
gets( tempStr );

for ( i = 0; i < numLines; i++ ) {
  printf( "Enter string: " );
  gets( tempStr );
  strcat( string, tempStr );
}

---

I've tried your code with that change and it works fine.

thnx worked fine
but if only a newline is needed can i just print '\n' after that scanf() ?