Help on accessing structures using 'gets'

This is a cut from my code:


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Code:

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/* Database (name,age,salary,height,weight) program using structure and
  gets. */
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <conio.h>

#define MAX 4 /* To define MAX as 4 */

int main()
{
  /* Database structure definition. */
typedef struct input{
        char name[256];
        int age;
        int salary;
        float height;
        float weight;
        }Input; /* End structure database. */
  Input info[MAX];      /* New type name for struct database. */
  int x,age,salary,height,weight;  /* initialize variables. */
  char name[256];  /* initialize characters. */

  /* Loop through database. */
  for(x=0;x<MAX;x++)
  {
  printf("\n  Please type full name of person %d \t\t", x+1);
  gets(info[x].name); 
  printf("\n  Please type age of person %d \t\t", x+1);
  scanf("%d", &info[x].age);
  printf("\n  Please type salary of person %d \t\t", x+1);
  scanf("%d", &info[x].salary);
  printf("\n  Please type height of person %d \t\t", x+1);
  scanf("%f", &info[x].height);
  printf("\n  Please type weight of person %d \t\t", x+1);
  scanf("%f", &info[x].weight);
  }

---

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I need some answer on the bold area, thank you.

>I need some answer on the bold area, thank you.
Don't use gets, it's impossible to make it safe. I'm not sure what kind of answer you were looking for since you didn't ask a question.

My question is that I need to know how to use gets in this code, because I am told to use it by my lecture...

Can anyone help me with this one please? I really need the answer because I've tried so many ways on doing it but it does not work. Thank you very much for your help.

>I need to know how to use gets in this code
That's simple, don't. :) But there's nothing "technically" wrong with how you're using it now. Did you test it?

>because I am told to use it by my lecture...
I'd ask you to smack him for me if I thought that you would. You should consider finding someone better qualified to teach you C.

[edit]
Or did you stumble on the whole scanf/unformatted input problem? It's asked often, and answered just as often if you want to search the forum for it.
[/edit]

So there is no way using 'gets' to access structures? The lecture told me to use scanf for one code and 'gets' for another code. I have been searching sites by sites for an answer, :(

The problem of this code is that when i try to compile and run it, the second looping for the 'gets' is not working and the code jumps to 'scanf' for inputting age and so on. Why is it happenning?

Sounds like a '\n' is being left in the input buffer.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pianorain

Sounds like a '\n' is being left in the input buffer.

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This is not a problem. The problem is in the looping part, I can't figure out what's wrong and the code doesn't give me any error to debug when I compile and run it...

>So there is no way using 'gets' to access structures?
Did you completely miss the part where I said that your code was correct?

>Why is it happenning?
Finally, you describe the real problem. It's exactly what I predicted. scanf doesn't play well with unformatted input functions because it usually treats whitespace differently. In this case, a newline character is being left in the stream by scanf and gets is reading it immediately and terminating successfully. This is a relevant FAQ entry, as is this.

The following code sample works for me. All I did was force the floating point library to load with the dummy float variable and clear out the structure. I single stepped the code thru a debugger and the structure loads clean. Just the way you'd expect the structure to load.

Bob

Code:

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#include <windows.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <memory.h>
/***************************************
This program shall SORT!
Made by Mark Crick
©2005 Mark Crick
****************************************/
#define MAX 256


int main(void)
{
    float fDummy = 0.0; // Force the floating point library to load
    typedef struct input1{
        char name[256];
        int age;
        int salary;
        float height;
        float weight;
    }Input; /* End structure database. */
    Input info[MAX]= {0};      /* New type name for struct database. */
    int x,age,salary,height,weight;  /* initialize variables. */
    char name[256] ={0};  /* initialize characters. */
    /* Loop through database. */
    for(x=0;x<MAX;x++)
    {
        printf("\n  Please type full name of person %d \t\t", x+1);
        gets(info[x].name); 
        printf("\n  Please type age of person %d \t\t", x+1);
        scanf("%d", &info[x].age);
        printf("\n  Please type salary of person %d \t\t", x+1);
        scanf("%d", &info[x].salary);
        printf("\n  Please type height of person %d \t\t", x+1);
        scanf("%f", &info[x].height);
        printf("\n  Please type weight of person %d \t\t", x+1);
        scanf("%f", &info[x].weight);
    }
    return 0;
}

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THanks everyone for your help! I finally finish the code. What I do is just by adding this code (while (getchar() != '\n');) after the last scanf. Thank you again for your contribution guys, I appreciate them very much.

Best Regards,

phil1p