C Beginner Looking For Suggestions Post: 302302617

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Top Forums Programming C Beginner Looking For Suggestions Post 302302617 by deckard on Tuesday 31st of March 2009 12:40:42 PM

03-31-2009

Registered User

C Beginner Looking For Suggestions

A few weeks ago at the recommendation of people I trust, I bought and started reading Kernighan and Ritchie's (K&R) C Programming Language. For one thing, it's damn thin compared to the O'Reilly Practical C I just finished last month. It covers generally the same stuff but in a much more efficient manner. Of course, what do I know? I'm only on chapter 1 and I'm taking K&R's advice and pausing my reading to work through the programming problems in the chapter. One thing that's kind of frustrating to me is that I ran into a problem that seems like it could have an elegant solution, but I've not come up with one. Problem 1-9 which says:

"Write a program to copy its input to its output, replacing each string of one or more blanks by a single blank".

At first I tried coming up with my own code from scratch and wound up with some freakish binary that spit out unprintable characters (probably a mix up in data types). So I started over and entered their file copying program example (1.5.1) from page 16. Then I thought about how to modify it. Here is what I came up with:

Code:

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
  int c, space;

  space = 0;
  c = getchar();

  while (c != EOF) {
  if (c == 32 && space == 1)
    /* do nothing */;
  else if (c != ' ') {
    space = 0;
    putchar(c);}
  else if (c == ' ') {
    space = 1;
    putchar(c);}
    
    c = getchar();
  }
}

(NOTE: I used 32 for space in the first if conditional while testing and didn't switch it back to c == ' '.)

The compiled program works on the most basic level, but I'm sure it's bug ridden and the wrong input will make it barf. Since it does what it's supposed to, I've moved on. But I'm strangely bothered since I *KNOW* there has to be a better way than a bunch of serial if conditionals. I get this nagging feeling that I could do it shorter and with fewer checks.

But I just couldn't do it. Anyone else see where I'm totally off? This is definitely beginner style code and I admit as much. But I was pretty bad in the beginning with Bash too (I had a full page script in 2001 to generate MP3 playlists by traversing directories. Today I have a two liner using the 'find' command), so I think there is hope for my dream of one day being fluent at C. Anyone have any suggestions about my above code? Where could my thinking be improved?

I'll also say that I have a lot of trouble thinking in parallel, but it seems that that is how the best coders think. My code has always been serial in DOS BAT files, CMD, Bash, Perl and now C. Any tips on changing that way of seeing things? Also, let me know if this isn't the right place to post this.

NOTE: I know there's an "answer book" for this book. But I want to do it the "hard way" first and then when I'm done I'll compare my answers with the ones in the answer book.

deckard

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LEARN ABOUT DEBIAN

books

books(3)							       Coin								  books(3)

NAME

       books - Books Related to Open Inventor / Coin Here is a list of some of the better books for people that invested in software development
       with Open Inventor. If you have suggestions for additional books that ought to go on this list, please feel free to tell us about it.

The Inventor Mentor
       (subtitle 'Programming Object-Oriented 3D Graphics with Open Inventor')

       This is an excellently written, detailed, tutorial-style introductory book for Open Inventor that takes you through all the fundamental
       design principles applied in the Open Inventor API, richly illustrated and with numerous, well documented code examples.

       The Inventor Mentor is getting a bit old, but do not let that put you off. It is as valid today as it was the day it was written, and we
       heartily recommend this book for anyone learning to use Open Inventor.

       ISBN 0-201-62495-8. You might also be able to find this book as a pdf file online, but we recommend having it in print.

The Inventor Toolmaker
       This book explains how Open Inventor was designed for being extended by the users, and walks you through how to develop your own components
       that work with all aspects of Coin.

       ISBN 0-201-62493-1. You might also be able to find this book as a pdf file online, but we recommend having it in print.

The Annotated VRML2.0 Reference Manual
       This book covers the VRML97 (aka VRML 2.0) standard, which Coin has implemented with its Inventor/VRMLnodes/* classes, which is an
       extension made beyond the Open Inventor V2.1 API.

       The VRML97 format has some significant differences from the Inventor and VRML1 formats, so it is a useful book if you want to use that part
       of Coin.

       ISBN 0-201-41974-2. You will find the specification documents for VRML97 online at http://www.web3d.org/.

The Open GL Programming Manual
       This is the bible when it comes to OpenGL programming and is relevant for Open Inventor extenders that develop new nodes that implement or
       affect Open Inventor OpenGL rendering. There are many editions of this book since it is updated whenever new versions of OpenGL are
       standardized and comes out, so check that you have identified the latest edition if you order one.

The Open Inventor C++ Reference Manual
       Although this book is directly relevant for Open Inventor, it does only cover the Open Inventor 2.1 API. This information is more or less
       also covered in the online doxygen doc for Coin, where you have it hyperlinked, and can also be generated offline from the Coin sources to
       have locally, so we do not think this book is very useful to have in print. We mention it anyway since it is an official documentation book
       for Open Inventor.

       ISBN 0-201-62491-5.

Version 3.1.3							  Wed May 23 2012							  books(3)

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