Sorting a sentence using arrays and strings - c++

Question

Sorry guys forewarning I suck at coding but have a big project and need help!
Input: A complete Sentence.
Output: The sorted order (ASCii Chart Order) of the sentence (ignore case.)
Output a histogram for the following categories:
1) Vowels
2) Consonants
3) Punctuation
4) Capital Letters
5) LowerCase Letters
I have no clue what to even do

Answer 1

Since you are vague in what your issue is, I recommend the following process:
Review Requirements
Always review the requirements (assignment). If there are items you don't understand or have the same understanding as your Customer (instructor), discuss them with your Customer.
Write a simple main program.
Write a simple main or "Hello World!" program to validate your IDE and other tools. Get it working before moving on. Keep it simple.
Here's an example:
#include <iostream>
#include <cstdlib> // Maybe necessary for EXIT_SUCCESS.
int main()
{
std::cout << "Hello World!\n";
return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}
Update program to input text & validate.
Add in code to perform input, validate the input and echo to the console.
#include <iostream>
#include <cstdlib> // Maybe necessary for EXIT_SUCCESS.
#include <string>
int main()
{
std::string sentence;
do
{
std::cout << "Enter a sentence: ";
std::getline(cin, sentence);
if (sentence.empty())
{
std::cout << "\nEmpty sentence, try again.\n\n"
}
} while (sentence.empty());
std::cout << "\nYou entered: " << sentence << "\n";
// Keep the console window open until Enter key is pressed.
std::cout << "\n\nPaused. Press Enter to finish.\n";
std::cin.ignore(100000, '\n');
return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}
Add functionality, one item at a time and test.
Add code for one simple requirement, compile and test.
After it works, make a backup.
Repeat until all requirements are implemented.

Answer 2

For ordering the string you can use standard c qsort function. For counting vowels, consonants, punctuation... you need a simple for loop.
Here is a working example:
#include <iostream.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <ctype.h>
int cmp(const void* pc1, const void* pc2)
{
if(*(char*)pc1 < *(char*)pc2) return -1;
if(*(char*)pc1 > *(char*)pc2) return 1;
return 0;
}
void main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
char pczInput[2000] = "A complete sentence.";
cout << endl << "Input: '" << pczInput << "'";
qsort(pczInput, strlen(pczInput), sizeof(char), cmp);
cout << endl << "Result: '" << pczInput << "'";
int iCapital = 0;
int iLowerCase = 0;
int iPunctuation = 0;
int iVowels = 0;
int iConsonants = 0;
for(unsigned int ui = 0; ui < strlen(pczInput); ++ui)
{
if(isupper(pczInput[ui])) ++iCapital;
if(islower(pczInput[ui])) ++iLowerCase;
if(ispunct(pczInput[ui])) ++iPunctuation;
if(strchr("aeiouAEIOU", pczInput[ui]) != NULL) ++iVowels;
if(strchr("bcdfghjklmnpqrstvwxyzBCDFGHJKLMNPQRSTVWXYZ", pczInput[ui]) != NULL) ++iConsonants;
}
cout << endl << "Capital chars: " << iCapital;
cout << endl << "Lower case chars: " << iLowerCase;
cout << endl << "Punctuation chars: " << iPunctuation;
cout << endl << "Vowels chars: " << iVowels;
cout << endl << "Consonants chars: " << iConsonants;
cout << endl;
}
Note that I used C standard functions for counting capital, lower case and punctuation, and I had to use strchr function for counting vowels and consonants because such functions are missing in standard C library.
The output of the program is:
Input: 'A complete sentence.'
Result: ' .Acceeeeelmnnopstt'
Capital chars: 1
Lower case chars: 16
Punctuation chars: 1
Vowels chars: 7
Consonants chars: 10