Assigning a structure to another structure results in garbage - c++

Question

The two structures used in my code, one is nested
struct Class
{
std::string name;
int units;
char grade;
};
struct Student
{
std::string name;
int id;
int num;
double gpa;
Class classes[20];
};
I am trying to figure out a way to sort the structures within the all_students[100] array in order of their ID's in ascending order. My thought was, to start counting at position 1 and then compare that to the previous element. If it was smaller than the previous element then I would have a temporary array of type Student to equate it to, then it would be a simple matter of switching them places within the all_students array. However, when I print the results, one of the elements ends up being garbage numbers, and not in order. This is for an intermediate C++ class in University and we are not allowed to use pointers or vectors since he has not taught us this yet. Anything not clear feel free to ask me.
The function to sort the structures based on ID
void sort_id(Student all_students[100], const int SIZE)
{
Student temporary[1];
int counter = 1;
while (counter < SIZE + 1)
{
if (all_students[counter].id < all_students[counter - 1].id)
{
temporary[0] = all_students[counter];
all_students[counter] = all_students[counter - 1];
all_students[counter - 1] = temporary[0];
counter = 1;
}
counter++;
}
display(all_students, SIZE);
}

Answer 1

There are a few things wrong with your code:
You don't need to create an array of size 1 to use as a temporary variable.
Your counter will range from 1 to 100, you will go out of bounds: the indices of an array of size 100 range from 0 to 99.
The following solution uses insertion sort to sort the array of students, it provides a faster alternative to your sorting algorithm. Note that insertion sort is only good for sufficiently small or nearly sorted arrays.
void sort_id(Student* all_students, int size)
{
Student temporary;
int i = 1;
while(i < size) // Read my note below.
{
temporary = all_students[i];
int j = i - 1;
while(j >= 0 && temporary.id < all_students[j].id)
{
all_students[j+1] = all_students[j]
j--;
}
all_students[j+1] = temporary;
i++;
}
display(all_students, size);
}
Note: the outer while-loop can also be done with a for-loop like this:
for(int i = 1; i < size; i++)
{
// rest of the code ...
}
Usually, a for-loop is used when you know beforehand how many iterations will be done. In this case, we know the outer loop will iterate from 0 to size - 1. The inner loop is a while-loop because we don't know when it will stop.

Answer 2

Your array of Students ranges from 0, 99. Counter is allowed to go from 1 to 100.
I'm assuming SIZE is 100 (in which case, you probably should have the array count also be SIZE instead of hard-coding in 100, if that wasn't just an artifact of typing the example for us).
You can do the while loop either way, either
while(counter < SIZE)
and start counter on 0, or
while (counter < SIZE+1)
and start counter on 1, but if you do the latter, you need to subtract 1 from your array subscripts. I believe that's why the norm (based on my observations) is to start at 0.
EDIT: I wasn't the downvoter! Also, just another quick comment, there's really no reason to have your temporary be an array. Just have
Student temporary;

Answer 3

I overlooked the fact that I was allowing the loop to access one more element than the array actually held. That's why I was getting garbage because the loop was accessing data that didn't exist.
I fixed this by changing while (counter < SIZE + 1)
to: while (counter < SIZE )
Then to fix the second problem which was about sorting, I needed to make sure that the loop started again from the beginning after a switch, in case it needed to switch again with a lower element. So I wrote continue; after counter = 1