Still confused with pointers

I was trying to return the position of a character in a string. The code below doesn't work because of the int *c, if I remove the *, it works fine. Just out of curiosity, how would it be possible to make it work without removing the "*" ? Whitch method would usually be prefered ?

Code:

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int find_chr_index(char char *aeg, int *c)
{
        int p = strlen(aeg);
        int i = 0;

        for(i = 0; i < p; i++)
        {
                if((int)aeg[i] == c) return i;
        }
        return -1;
}

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Also..how to compare and add a string and a char (given as char *a str and char c) ?

Best wishes and thanks, D5

Why are you looking for an integer pointer in a text string?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dave_Sinkula

Why are you looking for an integer pointer in a text string?

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By a stupid mistake.

Your function looks a lot like the standard library function strchr. You could do something like this:

Code:

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  const char text[] = "hello world";
  const char *found = strchr(text, 'r');
  if ( found )
  {
      int pos = found - text;
      printf("pos = %d\n", pos);
  }

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But if I were to roll my own, it might look like this.

Code:

---

int mystrchr(const char *text, int c)
{
  const char *s = text;
  while ( *s )
  {
      if ( *s == c )
      {
        return s - text;
      }
      ++s;
  }
  return -1;
}

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That code doesn't do what you expect at all. And WTH is char char *? This function's prototype should be:

Code:

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int find_chr_index(const char *aeg, const int c)

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There's no need to pass an int pointer to this function, and neither argument is to be modified within, so therefore you would qualify each as const.

Perhaps running this code and observing the output might help:

Code:

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#include <stdio.h>

// Find the needle in the haystack.
int find_chr_index(const char *haystack, const int needle)
{
  if (NULL == haystack)
  {
      printf("Invalid argument\n");
      return -1;
  }

  printf("Memory address of variable 'haystack': 0x&#37;x\n", &haystack);
  printf("Memory address SAVED in variable 'haystack': 0x%x\n", haystack);
  printf("Value of *haystack (contents of memory address saved in variable 'haystack': %c\n", *haystack);

  // A convenience pointer, pointing to the start
  // of the string we wish to search.
  const char *p = haystack;
 
  printf("Memory address of variable 'p': 0x%x\n", &p);
  printf("Memory address SAVED in variable 'p': 0x%x\n", p);
  printf("Value of *p (contents of memory address saved in variable 'p'): %c\n\n", *p);

  // Our index counter.
  int i = 0;

  printf("Entering loop...\n");

  // We will stop when we reach the character desired,
  // or when we reach the NULL character that terminates
  // this string.
  while (NULL != p && '\0' != *p)
  {
      printf("\tMemory address of variable 'p': 0x%x\n", &p);
      printf("\tMemory address SAVED in variable 'p': 0x%x\n", p);
      printf("\tValue of *p (contents of memory address saved in variable p): %c\n\n", *p);

      // If the character pointed to by p is equivalent
      // to the character provided, we will return the value of our counter.
      if (*p == needle)
        return i;

      // Increment the address saved in variable 'p' by the size
      // of a character.
      ++p;

      // Increment our counter.
      ++i;
  }

  return -1;
}

int main(void)
{
  const char *testString = "This is a string with a q in it";
  const char testChars[] = { 'q', 'g', 'z' };
  int result = -1;
  int i = 0;
  for (; i < (sizeof(testChars) / sizeof(testChars[0])); ++i)
  {
      char testChar = testChars[i];
      if (-1 == (result = find_chr_index(testString, testChar)))
        printf("Did not find character %c\n\n", testChar);
      else
        printf("Found character %c at position %d\n\n", testChar, result);
  }

  return 0;
}

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Code:

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  int i = 0;
  for (; i < (sizeof(testChars) / sizeof(testChars[0])); ++i)
  {
      char testChar = testChars[i];

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If you enabled compiler warnings, you would probably see that it complained about a signed/unsigned mismatch in the comparison of the for loop, because i is a signed int and sizeof() evaluates to an unsigned integer (a size_t, actually). I'd make i a size_t -- or maybe use a pointer instead.

Code:

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for(p = testChars; *p; p ++)

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Declaring variables in the middle of blocks, such as find_chr_index::p and find_chr_index::i, is C99.

Also:

Code:

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printf("\tMemory address of variable 'p': 0x%x\n", &p);

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There is a %p for that very reason. GCC wants you to cast the parameter to (void *), but I'm not sure if that's entirely necessary or not.

Code:

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printf("\tMemory address of variable 'p': %p\n", &p);

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Good code, though . . . nicely commented.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dwks

Code:

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printf("\tMemory address of variable 'p': 0x%x\n", &p);

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There is a %p for that very reason. GCC wants you to cast the parameter to (void *), but I'm not sure if that's entirely necessary or not.

Code:

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printf("\tMemory address of variable 'p': %p\n", &p);

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C99 says that %p is for a void pointer.

Code:

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printf("\tMemory address of variable 'p': %p\n", (void *) &p);

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dave_Sinkula

But if I were to roll my own, it might look like this.

Code:

---

int mystrchr(const char *text, int c)
{
  const char *s = text;
  while ( *s )
  {
      if ( *s == c )
      {
        return s - text;
      }
      ++s;
  }
  return -1;
}

---

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Why int c instead of char c?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cpjust

Why int c instead of char c?

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Signature equivalence with strchr.