Finding last word in a string - c++

I'm trying to return the last word in a string but am having trouble with the for loops. When I try to test the function I am only getting empty strings. Not really sure what the problem is. Any help is much appreciated.
string getLastWord(string text)
{
string revLastWord = "";
string lastWord = "";
if(text == "")
{
return text;
}
for(size_t i = text.size()-1; i > -1; i--)
{
if((isalpha(text[i])))
{
revLastWord+=text[i];
}
if(revLastWord.size()>=1 && !isalpha(text[i-1]))
{
break;
}
}
for(size_t k = revLastWord.size()-1; k > -1; k--)
{
lastWord+=revLastWord[k];
}
return lastWord;
}

I was coding up another solution until I checked back and read the comments; they are extremely helpful. Moreover, the suggestion from #JustinRandall was incredibly helpful. I find that find_last_of()
and substr() better state the intent of the function--easier to write and easier to read. Thanks! Hope this helps! It helped me.
std::string get_last_word(std::string s) {
auto index = s.find_last_of(' ');
std::string last_word = s.substr(++index);
return last_word;
}
/**
* Here I have edited the above function IAW
* the recommendations.
* #param s is a const reference to a std::string
* #return the substring directly
*/
std::string get_last_word(const std::string& s) {
auto index = s.find_last_of(' ');
return s.substr(++index);
}

The other answers tell you what's wrong, though you should also know why it's wrong.
In general, you should be very careful about using unsigned value types in loop conditions. Comparing an unsigned type like std::size_t and a signed type, like your constant -1, will cause the signed to get converted into an unsigned type, so -1 becomes the largest possible std::size_t value.
If you put some print statements throughout your code, you'll notice that your loops are never actually entered, because the conditional is always false. Use an int when performing arithmetic and especially when signed numbers are compared with.

Related

Generate string lexicographically larger than input

Given an input string A, is there a concise way to generate a string B that is lexicographically larger than A, i.e. A < B == true?
My raw solution would be to say:
B = A;
++B.back();
but in general this won't work because:
A might be empty
The last character of A may be close to wraparound, in which case the resulting character will have a smaller value i.e. B < A.
Adding an extra character every time is wasteful and will quickly in unreasonably large strings.
So I was wondering whether there's a standard library function that can help me here, or if there's a strategy that scales nicely when I want to start from an arbitrary string.
You can duplicate A into B then look at the final character. If the final character isn't the final character in your range, then you can simply increment it by one.
Otherwise you can look at last-1, last-2, last-3. If you get to the front of the list of chars, then append to the length.
Here is my dummy solution:
std::string make_greater_string(std::string const &input)
{
std::string ret{std::numeric_limits<
std::string::value_type>::min()};
if (!input.empty())
{
if (std::numeric_limits<std::string::value_type>::max()
== input.back())
{
ret = input + ret;
}
else
{
ret = input;
++ret.back();
}
}
return ret;
}
Ideally I'd hope to avoid the explicit handling of all special cases, and use some facility that can more naturally handle them. Already looking at the answer by #JosephLarson I see that I could increment more that the last character which would improve the range achievable without adding more characters.
And here's the refinement after the suggestions in this post:
std::string make_greater_string(std::string const &input)
{
constexpr char minC = ' ', maxC = '~';
// Working with limits was a pain,
// using ASCII typical limit values instead.
std::string ret{minC};
auto rit = input.rbegin();
while (rit != input.rend())
{
if (maxC == *rit)
{
++rit;
if (rit == input.rend())
{
ret = input + ret;
break;
}
}
else
{
ret = input;
++(*(ret.rbegin() + std::distance(input.rbegin(), rit)));
break;
}
}
return ret;
}
Demo
You can copy the string and append some letters - this will produce a lexicographically larger result.
B = A + "a"

return a char function with random options and local variables

I have created a unit test harness to test my program. I wanted it to be able to randomly test each run but I'm not sure how to go about doing this. Here is what I was think but I get stuck on what to do next, any guidance would be much appreciated.
int main (void)
{
int testNumber = 1; //for testing
char carName[] = "";
double carCost = 0;
carName = carChosen (testNumber);
carCost = assessCost (carName); //assessCost takes in the car name and checks what cost of the car will be (error checking so only certain cars can be chosen)
return 0;
}
"testNumber" would normally be seeded with time to create different number's from 1 - 15, but in this situation it's going to be "1" for testing.
This is next bit that I'm having trouble with. Within this function there would be 15 diffrent car options and it will return one depending on the randomly created number.
char carChosen (int randNum)
{
char carOne[] = "Honda";
char carTwo[] = "Ford";
if (randNum == 1)
{
return carOne; //local variables, not going to work...
}
else if (randNum == 2)
{
return carTwo; // Again, these return's are here to better represent what I'm trying to create but failing to do so..
}
}
I understand you cannot return local variables, what can I do instead?
This
void carChosen (int randNum, char * out)
{
char carOne[] = "Honda";
char carTwo[] = "Ford";
if (randNum == 1)
{
strcpy(out, carOne);
}
else if (randNum == 2)
{
strcpy(out, carTwo);
} //.. handle other cases
}
Call like
char carName[MAX_LEN];
carChosen (testNumber, carName);
Also maybe you are better of using switch instead of nested if..else if you have many conditions to test.
I thought it was C looking at the code, if you use C++, you can just return std::string objects from your function without any issues.
As others have pointed out, your code looks like C code. If you want to use C++, then read up on std::string and use that.
If you want to continue with your approach (which is very much a C-like approach), then you'll need to better understand how C strings work. Namely, how they are stored in memory and how a char is different from a char * is different from a char array[].
Putting most of that aside for now, my first guess based upon your example code is that you won't actually be modifying the contents of the string. You just want the string for its contents, but you won't be changing them. If this is accurate than you can just use regular char * variable to hold a pointer to a char string. You only need one copy of the string hanging around, so you can pass around a pointer to that one copy and everyone can read from that pointer. A quick way to do this is to just use the string literal directly.
const char* carChosen (int randNum)
{
if (randNum == 1)
{
return "Honda";
}
else if (randNum == 2)
{
return "Ford";
}
else
{
return "Audi";
}
}
Note that we are returning a const char *. The const is just indicating that we will not be modifying the string that is pointed to. We definitely do not want to do that because it points to a string literal (which you are not allowed to modify). Once you have the const char * returned by carChosen, you can pass that along to other functions, e.g. assessCost.

Character pointers messed up in simple Boyer-Moore implementation

I am currently experimenting with a very simple Boyer-Moore variant.
In general my implementation works, but if I try to utilize it in a loop the character pointer containing the haystack gets messed up. And I mean that characters in it are altered, or mixed.
The result is consistent, i.e. running the same test multiple times yields the same screw up.
This is the looping code:
string src("This haystack contains a needle! needless to say that only 2 matches need to be found!");
string pat("needle");
const char* res = src.c_str();
while((res = boyerMoore(res, pat)))
++res;
This is my implementation of the string search algorithm (the above code calls a convenience wrapper which pulls the character pointer and length of the string):
unsigned char*
boyerMoore(const unsigned char* src, size_t srcLgth, const unsigned char* pat, size_t patLgth)
{
if(srcLgth < patLgth || !src || !pat)
return nullptr;
size_t skip[UCHAR_MAX]; //this is the skip table
for(int i = 0; i < UCHAR_MAX; ++i)
skip[i] = patLgth; //initialize it with default value
for(size_t i = 0; i < patLgth; ++i)
skip[(int)pat[i]] = patLgth - i - 1; //set skip value of chars in pattern
std::cout<<src<<"\n"; //just to see what's going on here!
size_t srcI = patLgth - 1; //our first character to check
while(srcI < srcLgth)
{
size_t j = 0; //char match ct
while(j < patLgth)
{
if(src[srcI - j] == pat[patLgth - j - 1])
++j;
else
{
//since the number of characters to skip may be negative, I just increment in that case
size_t t = skip[(int)src[srcI - j]];
if(t > j)
srcI = srcI + t - j;
else
++srcI;
break;
}
}
if(j == patLgth)
return (unsigned char*)&src[srcI + 1 - j];
}
return nullptr;
}
The loop produced this output (i.e. these are the haystacks the algorithm received):
This haystack contains a needle! needless to say that only 2 matches need to be found!
eedle! needless to say that only 2 matches need to be found!
eedless to say that eed 2 meed to beed to be found!
As you can see the input is completely messed up after the second run. What am I missing? I thought the contents could not be modified, since I'm passing const pointers.
Is the way of setting the pointer in the loop wrong, or is my string search screwing up?
Btw: This is the complete code, except for includes and the main function around the looping code.
EDIT:
The missing nullptr of the first return was due to a copy/paste error, in the source it is actually there.
For clarification, this is my wrapper function:
inline char* boyerMoore(const string &src, const string &pat)
{
return (const char*) boyerMoore((const unsigned char*) src.c_str(), src.size(),
(const unsigned char*) pat.c_str(), pat.size());
}
In your boyerMoore() function, the first return isn't returning a value (you have just return; rather than return nullptr;) GCC doesn't always warn about missing return values, and not returning anything is undefined behavior. That means that when you store the return value in res and call the function again, there's no telling what will print out. You can see a related discussion here.
Also, you have omitted your convenience function that calculates the length of the strings that you are passing in. I would recommend double checking that logic to make sure the sizes are correct - I'm assuming you are using strlen or similar.

String compression (Interview prepare)

I need to compress a string. Can make an assumption that each character in the string doesn`t appear more than 255 times. I need return the compressed string and its length.
Last 2 years I worked with C# and forgot C++. I will be glad to hear your comments about code , algorithm and c++ programming practices
// StringCompressor.h
class StringCompressor
{
public:
StringCompressor();
~StringCompressor();
unsigned long Compress(string str, string* strCompressedPtr);
string DeCompress(string strCompressed);
private:
string m_StrCompressed;
static const char c_MaxLen;
};
// StringCompressor.cpp
#include "StringCompressor.h"
const char StringCompressor::c_MaxLen = 255;
StringCompressor::StringCompressor()
{
}
StringCompressor::~StringCompressor()
{
}
unsigned long StringCompressor::Compress(string str, string* strCompressedPtr)
{
if (str.empty())
{
return 0;
}
char currentChar = str[0];
char count = 1;
for (string::iterator it = str.begin() + 1; it != str.end(); ++it)
{
if (*it == currentChar)
{
count++;
if (count == c_MaxLen)
{
return -1;
}
}
else
{
m_StrCompressed+=currentChar;
m_StrCompressed+=count;
currentChar = *it;
count = 1;
}
}
m_StrCompressed += currentChar;
m_StrCompressed += count;
*strCompressedPtr = m_StrCompressed;
return m_StrCompressed.length();
}
string StringCompressor::DeCompress(string strCompressed)
{
string res;
if (strCompressed.length() % 2 != 0)
{
return res;
}
for (string::iterator it = strCompressed.begin(); it != strCompressed.end(); it+=2)
{
char dup = *(it + 1);
res += string(dup, *it);
}
return res;
}
There can be many improvement:
Do not return -1 for a unsigned long function.
consider use size_t or ssize_t to represent size.
Learn const
m_StrCompressed has bogus state if Compress is called repeatedly. Since those member cannot be reused, you may as well make the function static.
Compressed stuff generally should not be considered string, but byte buffer. Redesign your interface.
Comments! Nobody knows you are doing RLE here.
Bonus: Fallback mechanism if your compression yield larger result. e.g. a flag to denote uncompressed buffer, or just return failure.
I assume efficiency is not major concern here.
A few things:
I'm all for using classes, and perhaps you could do that here in a way that makes more sense. But given the scope of what you are trying to do, this here would be better off as two functions. One for compression, one for decompression. For instance, why are you storing the string in the class as an object and never using it? How does grouping this as a class actually enhance the functionality or make it more reusable?
You should pass your compressed string return as a reference instead of a pointer.
It looks like you are trying to count the number of times characters are repeated in a row and save that. For most common strings this will make the size of your compressed string larger than uncompressed as it takes two bytes to store each non-repeated character.
There are a lot of characters, there are two kinds of bits. If you do this method trying to group repeated bits, you'd be more successful (and that's actually one simple method of lossless compression).
If you are allowed, just use a library like zlib to do compression of arbitrary data types.

how to auto generate eclipse-indigo method block comment?

i want to generate block comment using eclipse-Indigo like this. I'm C++ programmer.
/**
*
* #param bar
* #return
*/
int foo(int bar);
how can i do like this.
IF your input is pretty much static, you can write a simplified lexer that will work, requires simple string mungeing. string has lots of nice editing capabilities in it with .substr() and .find() in it. all you have to do is figure out where the perens are. you know you can optionally process this as a stringstream, which makes this FAR easier (don't forget to use std::skipws to skip whitespace.
http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/string/string/substr/
http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/string/string/find/
#include <vector>
#include <string>
typedef STRUCT arg_s {
string sVarArgDataType, sVarArg;
} arg_s ARG;
ARG a;
vector<ARG> va;
char line[65000];
filein.getline(line, 65000);
line[65000-1]='\0'; //force null termination if it hasn't happened
get line and store in string sline0
size_t firstSpacePos=sline.find(' ');
size_t nextSpacePos = sline.find(' ',firstSpacePos+1);
size_t prevCommaPos = string::npos;
size_t nextCommaPos = sline.find(',');
size_t openPerenPos=sline.find('(');
size_t closePerenPos=sline.find(");");
string sReturnDataType, sFuncName;
if (
string::npos==firstSpacePos||
string::npos==semicolonPos||
string::npos==openPerenPos||
string::npos==closePerenPos) {
return false; //failure
}
while (string::npos != nextSpacePos) {
if (string::npos != nextCommaPos) {
//found another comma, a next argument. use next comma as a string terminator and prevCommaPos as an arg beginning.
//assume all keywords are globs of text
a.sVarArgDataType=sline.substr(prevCommaPos+1,nextSpacePos-(prevCommaPos+1));
a.sVarArg=sline.substr(nextSpacePos+1,nextCommaPos-(nextSpacePos+1));
} else {
//didn't find another comma. use ) as a string terminator and prevCommaPos as an arg beginning.
//assume all keywords are globs of text
a.sVarArgDataType=sline.substr(prevCommaPos+1,nextSpacePos-(prevCommaPos+1));
a.sVarArg=sline.substr(nextSpacePos+1,closePerenPos-(nextSpacePos+1));
}
va.push_back(a); //add structure to list
//move indices to next argument
nextCommaPos = sline.find(',', secondSpacePos+1);
nextSpacePos = sline.find(' ', secondSpacePos+1);
}
int i;
fileout<<"/**
*
";
for (i=0; i < va.size(); i++) {
fileout<<" * #param "<<va[i].sVarArg;
}
fileout<<"
* #return
*/
"<<sReturnDataType<<" "<<sFuncName<<'(';
for (i=0; i < va.size(); i++) {
fileout<<va[i].sArgDataType<<" "<<va[i].sVarArg;
if (i != va.size()-1) {
fileout<<", "; //don;t show a comma-space for the last item
}
}
fileout<<");"<<std::endl;
this will handle any number of arguments EXCEPT ... the variable argument type. but you can put in your own detection code for that and the if statement that switches out between ... and the 2-keyword argument types. here I am only supporting 2 keywords in my struct. you can support more by using a while to search for all the spaces before the next , comma or ) right peren in inside the while loop add your variable number of strings to a vector<string> inside the struct you are going to replace - nah, just make a vector<vector<string> >. or, just one vector and do a va.clear() after every function is done.
I just noticed the eclipse tag. I don't know much about eclipse. I can't even get it to work. some program.