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I am a newbie and going through "The C programming language" by
Kernighan & Richie on my own time (I'm not a programmer but I want to
learn because it can save me time in my normal job, and it is kind of
fun). As I go through the book, I seek to do all the exercises because
they are very useful, and good, but it seems like I am just stumbling
through somewhat. In particular, I don't really know how to think about
"catching errors", or how my thought process should be. Right now, I
just try to come up with an algorithm by following the book and
improvising. I'll then try to test my code by throwing different things
at it (for instance, different types of input in different forms) and
see if it breaks, I then try to figure out why it broke and then patch
in the fix. My time is somewhat limited and I cannot at this time take
a C class at a junior college, but I was wondering if this is just part
of learning? Do I just need to continue reading various texts,
practicing, and studying code and I will acquire error checking and
more robust code over time? Any suggestions, hints, words of advice,
would be greatly appreciated. Thanks very much.
Here is my program by the way:
#include <stdio.h>
//program that counts the number of words and total chars
// but without whitespace, and newlines
// tracks going in/out of words for purpose of counting
#define IN 1 //inside a word
#define OUT 1 //outside a word
main ()
{
int c; //var that holds char read from stdin
int state; //flag for in/out of words
int nc; //counts chars per word
int tnc; //counts total chars minus any whitespace, and newlines
int nw; //total number of words
//initialize variables
c = 0;
low = 0;
state = 0;
nc = 0;
tnc = 0;
nw = 0;
//read char at a time until end of file (ctrl-d)
while ( (c = getchar()) != EOF ) {
if ( c == '\n' || c == '\t' || c == ' ') {
state = OUT;
if (nc > 0) ++nw;
nc = 0;
} else {
state = IN; //if you are not OUT then you are IN
++nc;
++tnc;
}
}//while
printf("Number of words %d .. Number of non-whitespace chars %d \n",
nw, tnc);
}//main
Kernighan & Richie on my own time (I'm not a programmer but I want to
learn because it can save me time in my normal job, and it is kind of
fun). As I go through the book, I seek to do all the exercises because
they are very useful, and good, but it seems like I am just stumbling
through somewhat. In particular, I don't really know how to think about
"catching errors", or how my thought process should be. Right now, I
just try to come up with an algorithm by following the book and
improvising. I'll then try to test my code by throwing different things
at it (for instance, different types of input in different forms) and
see if it breaks, I then try to figure out why it broke and then patch
in the fix. My time is somewhat limited and I cannot at this time take
a C class at a junior college, but I was wondering if this is just part
of learning? Do I just need to continue reading various texts,
practicing, and studying code and I will acquire error checking and
more robust code over time? Any suggestions, hints, words of advice,
would be greatly appreciated. Thanks very much.
Here is my program by the way:
#include <stdio.h>
//program that counts the number of words and total chars
// but without whitespace, and newlines
// tracks going in/out of words for purpose of counting
#define IN 1 //inside a word
#define OUT 1 //outside a word
main ()
{
int c; //var that holds char read from stdin
int state; //flag for in/out of words
int nc; //counts chars per word
int tnc; //counts total chars minus any whitespace, and newlines
int nw; //total number of words
//initialize variables
c = 0;
low = 0;
state = 0;
nc = 0;
tnc = 0;
nw = 0;
//read char at a time until end of file (ctrl-d)
while ( (c = getchar()) != EOF ) {
if ( c == '\n' || c == '\t' || c == ' ') {
state = OUT;
if (nc > 0) ++nw;
nc = 0;
} else {
state = IN; //if you are not OUT then you are IN
++nc;
++tnc;
}
}//while
printf("Number of words %d .. Number of non-whitespace chars %d \n",
nw, tnc);
}//main
