CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c
Bluuu
Bluuu

Reputation: 75

Counting the number of letters in the longest word

I want to get the number of letters of the longest word. If I input something like "hello me" I get 5 but if I write something longer like "league of legends" I get 6 instead of 7. Why?

#include <stdio.h>
int longest_word(const char string[]){
    int i;
    int max;
    int cont;
    i=0;
    while(string[i]!='\0'){
        for(cont=0;string[i]!=' '&& string[i]!='\0';i++)
            cont++;
        if (cont>max)
            max=cont;
        ++i;
    }
    return max;
}
int main(void){
    char f[100];    #maybe this is the problem?
    int i;
    printf("input a string: ");
    scanf("%s",f);
    i=longest_word(f);
    printf("%d",i);
    return 0;
}

Upvotes: 1

Views: 529

Answers (4)

user3748054
user3748054

Reputation: 1

Use getc() in a loop instead of scanf (), as scanf will not consider the input after ' ','\n'...,

Add printf() after scanf() statement., U will come to know.

Upvotes: 0

Jonathan Leffler
Jonathan Leffler

Reputation: 754570

One of the simplest ways of debugging is to print the data you get to make sure the program got what you think it got.

With scanf(), the %s format reads a single 'word', stopping at the first white space. If you printed f immediately after the call to scanf():

printf("Input: <<%s>>\n", f);

you would see that it contains just 'league' so it gives 6 correctly. Strictly, you should check that scanf() actually got some input before using it:

if (scanf("%99s", f) != 1)
    …EOF or error…

You would either need to use fgets() to read a whole line, or call scanf() and longest_word() iteratively to get as far as 'legends' and the answer 7. Note that your code would count a newline (such as is kept at the end of a line by fgets()) as part of a word. You might want to check the <ctype.h> header and use the isspace() macro to test for white space.

Also, as first pointed out by pablo1977 in his answer, you need to initialize max in longest_word().

Upvotes: 5

BLUEPIXY
BLUEPIXY

Reputation: 40145

#include <stdio.h>

int longest_word(const char string[]){
    int i;
    int max=0;//need initialize
    int cont;
    i=0;
    while(string[i]!='\0'){
        for(cont=0;string[i]!=' '&& string[i]!='\0';i++)
            cont++;
        if (cont>max)
            max=cont;
        if(string[i]==' ')//Do not increment when string[i]=='\0',,
           ++i;
    }
    return max;
}
int main(void){
    char f[100];
    int i;
    printf("input a string: ");
    //scanf("%s",f);// a string delimited by white spaces
    scanf("%99[^\n]",f);
    i=longest_word(f);
    printf("%d\n",i);
    return 0;
}

Upvotes: 2

pablo1977
pablo1977

Reputation: 4433

The variable max needs to be initialized.

I think this is the problem.

Upvotes: 0

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