C++ If else chain and nest for variable comparison - c++

Question

I'm writing a program that will take an 8 digit number as input by the user and will evaluate it so if any digit that appears more than 3 times will be labelled as "unacceptable"; if all digits appear 3 or fewer times it is labelled as "acceptable".
So these numbers:
41124535, 13134113, 24255411
would all be labelled as acceptable, but these ones
34233332, 31111412, 55551122
would be labelled as unacceptable.
My approach is if... else chains and nests. So far I've managed to make a chain work, but it can only compare the digits when they repeat up to 2 times. Then I have a nest, but it only works if I write the else part every step of the way, instead of just leaving one single else at the end. This is crucial since the else part in the end will take the algorithm to a new if else nest that will evaluate the rest of the 8 digit long number.
The beginning of the program:
cout << "\n\n\t Input 1st digit:";
cin >> A;
cout << "\t Input 2nd digit:";
cin >> B;
cout << "\t Input 3rd digit:";
cin >> C;
cout << "\t Input 4th digit:";
cin >> D;
cout << "\t Input 5th digit:";
cin >> E;
cout << "\t Input 6th digit:";
cin >> F;
cout << "\t Input 7th digit:";
cin >> G;
cout << "\t Input 8th digit:";
cin >> H;
cout << "\n\t The number is: [";
cout << A;
cout << B;
cout << C;
cout << D;
cout << E;
cout << F;
cout << G;
cout << H;
cout << "]";
the if...else chain:
if (A==B)
cout << " Unacceptable!";
else
if (B==C)
cout << " Unacceptable!";
else
if (C==D)
cout << " Unacceptable!";
else
if (D==E)
cout << " Unacceptable!";
else
if (E==F)
cout << " Unacceptable!";
else
if (F==G)
cout << " Unacceptable!";
else
if (G==H)
cout << " Unacceptable!";
else
cout << " Acceptable";
then the nest with several else commands:
if (A==B)
{
if (A==C)
{
if (A==D)
cout << " Unacceptable!";
else
cout << " Acceptable";
}
else
cout << " Acceptable";
}
else
cout << " Acceptable";
so my guess is an if...else chain with if...else nests for each variable, but I can't work it out.

Answer 1

I'm not sure if you are using nested if statements for a specific reason - challenge, etc.? I'll assume you're not.
You can read the digits as one string - you could read as an int, but then you have to extract the digits from that anyways.
std::string input;
std::cin >> input;
/* validate input, make sure that it's 8 digits,
* that they are all digits, etc. - hint: int isdigit(int c)
*/
You can use a std::map to keep a histogram of the digits.
std::map< char, int > digit_histogram;
for (auto ch : input)
digit_histogram[ch]++;
Then the count of any digit dig is available as digit_histogram[dig]. You can loop through the map, or loop from 0-9 and discard any that is > 3.
This works for any number of digits, and it's 5 lines long without error checking. The point of programming is to make the computer do the work for you ;)

Answer 2

Start with some tests. This helps you understand your requirements, and clarifies your interface and how the function will be called. As this isn't a tutorial on unit testing, I'll just write a simple program that checks all the test cases succeed:
#include <cstdlib>
int main()
{
// these should all return true
if (!validate("41124535")) return EXIT_FAILURE;
if (!validate("13134113")) return EXIT_FAILURE;
if (!validate("24255411")) return EXIT_FAILURE;
// these should all return false
if (validate("34233332")) return EXIT_FAILURE;
if (validate("31111412")) return EXIT_FAILURE;
if (validate("55551122")) return EXIT_FAILURE;
return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}
Obviously this won't compile, as you haven't declared validate(). So let's add it, before main():
#include <string>
bool validate(const std::string& s)
{
return true;
}
It now compiles, but of course it fails because it never returns false. Now we can code the solution. We can count the occurrences of each character with a std::map:
#include <map>
#include <string>
static const int max_repeats = 3;
bool validate(const std::string& s)
{
std::map<char,int> counts;
for (char c: s)
if (++counts[c] > max_repeats)
return false;
return true;
}
Now, this runs, but it fails on the second test (found by commenting out this test and observing a pass - a real unit-test framework would identify the failing test for you).
The failing test has four 1s in it, so it fails. Why was it suppose to succeed? Ah, perhaps we've misinterpreted the requirement! Perhaps it's intended that the string have no more than three consecutive identical characters? Well we can do that too, by keeping count of the most recently seen character and how many repeats.
#include <string>
static const int max_repeats = 3;
bool validate(const std::string& s)
{
char last_seen = 0;
int repeats = 0;
for (char c: s) {
if (c != last_seen) {
// reset the matcher
last_seen = c;
repeats = 1;
} else {
// have we seen too many?
if (++repeats > max_repeats)
return false;
}
}
return true;
}
There are a few things to clean up, such as test cases with exactly three consecutive identical characters, and (perhaps) you might want to validate the length of the argument string.
And you can then convert it into a full program:
#include <iostream>
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
while (*++argv)
std::cout << *argv << (validate(*argv) ? " OK" : " FAIL") << std::endl;
}