Sorting words in a character array - c++

For the given array, I need to write a function to sort words alphabetically:
char strings [][10] = {
"hello",
"world",
"computers",
"are",
"awesome"
};
I've tried to write the function sortWords by using insertion sort, but I think my swap function isn't working:
void swap(char *e1, char *e2) {
int tmp = *e1;
*e1 = *e2;
*e2 = tmp;
}
void sortWords( char (* words2Darray)[10], unsigned short length ) {
unsigned int i, curPos;
char curChars[10];
for(i = 1; i < length; i++) {
// Copy the current word into curChars
strncpy_s(curChars, words2Darray[i], 10);
curPos = i;
// Compare and move the word to the correct position
while(curPos > 0 && strcmp(curChars, words2Darray[i-1]) > 0) {
swap(words2Darray[curPos], words2Darray[curPos-1]);
curPos--;
}
}
}
I've attempted debugging my code using the Local Windows Debugger and found that curChars is being copied properly.
Can someone please explain to me what I am doing wrong and how I should go about solving this problem? I'm not allowed to use std::string in this problem. No full solutions please!

You can just use std::sort:
std::sort(std::begin(strings), std::end(strings), cmp);
This requires a comparator. I whipped one up based on strcmp.
See it Live on IdeOne
#include <algorithm>
#include <iostream>
#include <cstring>
int main()
{
char const* strings[] = {
"hello",
"world",
"computers",
"are",
"awesome"
};
struct {
bool operator()(char const* a, char const* b) const {
return (a && b)? 0 > strcmp(a,b) : a < b;
}
} cmp;
std::sort(std::begin(strings), std::end(strings), cmp);
for (auto& s : strings)
std::cout << s << "\n";
}
Note that I took the liberty of making the array elements char* instead of char[].
This is for the reasons pointed out by Carl Norum.

You're not swapping strings, you're swapping the first characters of strings. If you want to pass by value, you need something like:
void swap(char **e1, char **e2) {
char *tmp = *e1;
*e1 = *e2;
*e2 = tmp;
}
And then to use it:
swap(&words2Darray[curPos], &words2Darray[curPos-1]);
Alternately you can leave the swap call as-is and use references:
void swap(char *&e1, char *&e2) {
char *tmp = e1;
e1 = e2;
e2 = tmp;
}
(I think that's right - my C++ is rusty. I'll make a test to be sure.)

Related

Sorting string vector using integer values at the end of the string in C++

I have a directory containing files {"good_6", good_7", "good_8"...,"good_660"}, after reading it using readdir and storing in a vector I get {"good_10", "good_100", "good_101", "good_102"...}.
What I want to do is to keep the file names as {"good_6", good_7", "good_8"...,"good_660"} in the vector and then replacing first name with 1, second with 2 and so on... such that good_6 will be 1, good_7 will be 2 and so on. but now good_10 corresponds to 1 and good_100 to 2 and so on.
I tried std::sort on vector but the values are already sorted, just not in a way that I desire (based on integer after _). Even if I just get the last integer and sort on that, it will still be sorted as 1, 100, 101...
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
You can use a custom function that compares strings with a special case for digits:
#include <ctype.h>
int natural_string_cmp(const char *sa, const char *sb) {
for (;;) {
int a = (unsigned char)*sa++;
int b = (unsigned char)*sb++;
/* simplistic version with overflow issues */
if (isdigit(a) && isdigit(b)) {
const char *sa1 = sa - 1;
const char *sb1 = sb - 1;
unsigned long na = strtoul(sa1, (char **)&sa, 10);
unsigned long nb = strtoul(sb1, (char **)&sb, 10);
if (na == nb) {
if ((sa - sa1) == (sb - sb1)) {
/* XXX should check for '.' */
continue;
} else {
/* Perform regular strcmp to handle 0 :: 00 */
return strcmp(sa1, sb1);
}
} else {
return (na < nb) ? -1 : +1;
}
} else {
if (a == b) {
if (a != '\0')
continue;
else
return 0;
} else {
return (a < b) ? -1 : 1;
}
}
}
}
Depending on your sorting algorithm, you may need to wrap it with an extra level of indirection:
int natural_string_cmp_ind(const void *p1, const void *p2) {
return natural_string_cmp(*(const char * const *)p1, *(const char * const *)p2);
}
char *array[size];
... // array is initialized with filenames
qsort(array, size, sizeof(*array), natural_string_cmp_ind);
I think you can play around with your data structure. For example instead of vector<string>, you can convert your data to vector< pair<int, string> >. Then {"good_6", "good_7", "good_8"...,"good_660"} should be {(6, "good"), (7, "good"), (7, "good")..., (660, "good")}. In the end, you convert it back and do whatever you want.
Another way is just to define your own comparator to do the exact comparison as what you want.
You can use string::replace to replace string "good_" with empty string, and use stoi to convert the rest of the integral part of the string. Lets say the value obtained is x.
Create std::map and populate it in this way myMap[x] = vec_element.
Then you can traverse from m.begin() till m.end() to find sorted order.
Code:
myMap[ stoi( vec[i].replace(0,5,"") )] = vec[i];
for( MapType::iterator it = myMap.begin(); it != myMap.end(); ++it ) {
sortedVec.push_back( it->second );
If I understand your question, you're just having trouble with the sorting and not how you plan to change the names after you sort.
Something like this might work for you:
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <vector>
#include <algorithm>
#include <tuple>
#include <string.h>
int main()
{
std::vector<std::string> v;
char buffer[64] = {};
for (size_t i = 1; i < 10; ++i)
{
sprintf(buffer, "good_%d", i * 3);
v.push_back(buffer);
sprintf(buffer, "bad_%d", i * 2);
v.push_back(buffer);
}
std::random_shuffle(v.begin(), v.end());
for (const auto& s : v)
{
std::cout << s << "\n";
}
std::sort(v.begin(), v.end(),
[](const std::string& lhs, const std::string& rhs)
{
//This assumes a lot about the contents of the strings
//and has no error checking just to keep things short.
size_t l_pos = lhs.find('_');
size_t r_pos = rhs.find('_');
std::string l_str = lhs.substr(0, l_pos);
std::string r_str = rhs.substr(0, r_pos);
int l_num = std::stoi(lhs.substr(l_pos + 1));
int r_num = std::stoi(rhs.substr(r_pos + 1));
return std::tie(l_str, l_num) < std::tie(r_str, r_num);
});
std::cout << "-----\n";
for (const auto& s : v)
{
std::cout << s << "\n";
}
return 0;
}
Managed to do it with the following compare function:
bool numericStringComapre(const std::string& s1, const std::string& s2)
{
size_t foundUnderScore = s1.find_last_of("_");
size_t foundDot = s1.find_last_of(".");
string s11 = s1.substr(foundUnderScore+1, foundDot - foundUnderScore - 1);
foundUnderScore = s2.find_last_of("_");
foundDot = s2.find_last_of(".");
string s22 = s2.substr(foundUnderScore+1, foundDot-foundUnderScore - 1);
int i1 = stoi(s11);
int i2 = stoi(s22);
if (i1 < i2) return true;
return false;
}
full file name was good_0.png, hence that find_last_of(".").

Pointing to a specific element in a character array

I've been trying to bend my head around this problem for a week now, but I can't seem to find anything online and I've given up on trying to solve it on my own.
My assignment is to write a program which will read names from a file and accept new entries from the user, then sort the entires and write them out to the file. The only crux about this is that I have to sort them in a function and use pointers to do so. This code is supposed to be written in C++ aswell, using character arrays.
The code I have right now looks like this. This is a working version, the only problem is that I don't use neither pointers or a function to sort the names.
#include<iostream>
#include<cstdlib>
#include<fstream>
#include<cstring>
bool sorted;
using namespace std;
int main()
{
int i = 0;
int numNames = 0;
ifstream ifs;
ifs.open("namn.txt");
char c[20][20];
if(ifs.is_open())
{
while(!ifs.eof())
{
ifs >> c[i];
i++;
}
}
cout<<"How many names do you want to enter?"<<endl;
cin>>numNames;
for(int l = i-1; l<numNames+i-1; l++)
{
system("cls");
cout<<"Enter a name: ";
cin>>c[l];
}
while(sorted == false)
{
for(int j = 0; j<numNames+i-1; j++)
{
for(int k = j; k<numNames+i-1; k++)
{
if(c[j][0] > c[k][0])
{
char snorre[20];
strcpy(snorre,c[j]);
strcpy(c[j],c[k]);
strcpy(c[k],snorre);
}
else if(c[j][0] == c[k][0])
{
if(c[j][1] > c[k][1])
{
char snorre[20];
strcpy(snorre,c[j]);
strcpy(c[j],c[k]);
strcpy(c[k],snorre);
}
}
}
}
cout<<endl<<endl<<endl;
ofstream ofs;
ofs.open("namn.txt");
for(int o = 0; o<numNames+i-1; o++)
{
cout<<c[o]<<" ";
ofs<<c[o]<<endl;
}
ofs.close();
system("pause");
sorted = true;
}
}
So hopefully someone could help me out with this problem, thanks in advance! :)
To get your code to use pointers and functions, you can do this- you should change your code and make it use the following:
First, Get each name from the file to an std::string, using getline(ifstream_object, std::string_object), for reference see here.
Convert each one to a const char * (also shown in that example), using .c_str().
Do the following to each of the new names entered.
Store all names entered in this array pointers: char *names[20];, like this: names[i] = name;
Next, Create a function such as follows:
int location_of_bigger_string(const char* s1, const char* s2)
{
// Returns 1 if s1 should be before s2 and 2 otherwise
// This way, you use functions and pointers together.
// Use strcmp(s1,s2) here to determine returning value
}
strcmp(char*, char*) - read about it here.
Finally, to sort all the strings, use qsort or this example.
Here's the complete code,
Note that the compare function gets pointers to the elements, here the elements are pointers themselves, so what's passed to "compare" function is of type "char **"
{
#include "stdafx.h"
#include<iostream>
//retruns +1 if str1 > str2 alphabetically
int compare(const void * a, const void * b )
{
const char * str1 = *((const char **)a);
const char * str2 = *((const char **)b);
int i;
for ( i = 0 ; str1[i] && str2[i] ; i++ )
{
if ( str1[i] > str2[i] )
{
return +1;
}
else if ( str1[i] < str2[i] )
{
return -1;
}
}
//one or both strings have ended
if (str1[i]) //str1 is longer
return +1;
else if (str2[i]) //str2 is longer
return -1;
else
return 0;
}
int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[])
{
char * names[]={"Zebra","Kousha","Koosha","Kou","Koush","Test"};
qsort( names, 6, sizeof(char *), compare );
return 0;
}
}

reverse a string using pointers

I have to admit, i have no idea how to use pointers, but I tried non the less. the problem with my program is that it shows the string in reverse, except for what was the first letter being missing and the entire string is moved one space forward with the first element being blank.
for example it show " olle" when typing "hello".
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;
string reverse(string word);
int main()
{
char Cstring[50];
cout<<"enter a word: ";
cin>>Cstring;
string results = reverse(Cstring);
cout <<results;
}
string reverse(string word)
{
char *front;
char *rear;
for (int i=0;i< (word.length()/2);i++)
{
front[0]=word[i];
rear[0]=word[word.length()-i];
word[i]=*rear;
word[word.length()-i]=*front;
}
return word;
}
The new code works perfectly. changed the strings to cstrings. the question technicaly asked for cstrings but i find strings easier so i work with strings then make the necesary changes to make it c string. figured out ho to initialize the rear and front as well.
#include <iostream>
#include <cstring>
using namespace std;
string reverse(char word[20]);
int main()
{
char Cstring[20];
cout<<"enter a word: ";
cin>>Cstring;
string results = reverse(Cstring);
cout <<results;
}
string reverse(char word[20])
{
char a='a';
char b='b';
char *front=&a;
char *rear=&b;
for (int i=0;i< (strlen(word)/2);i++)
{
front[0]=word[i];
rear[0]=word[strlen(word)-1-i];
word[i]=*rear;
word[strlen(word)-1-i]=*front;
}
return word;
}
char *front;
char *rear;
then later
front[0]=word[i];
rear[0]=word[strlen(word)-1-i];
Not good. Dereferencing uninitialized pointers invokes undefined behavior.
Apart from that, your code is overly complicated, it calls strlen() during each iteration (and even multiple times), which is superfluous, and the swap logic is also unnecessarily complex. Try using two pointers instead and your code will be much cleaner:
void rev_string(char *str)
{
char *p = str, *s = str + strlen(str) - 1;
while (p < s) {
char tmp = *p;
*p++ = *s;
*s-- = tmp;
}
}
The thing is, however, that in C++ there's rarely a good reason for using raw pointers. How about using std::reverse() instead?
string s = "foobar";
std::reverse(s.begin(), s.end());
inline void swap(char* a, char* b)
{
char tmp = *a;
*a = *b;
*b = tmp;
}
inline void reverse_string(char* pstart, char* pend)
{
while(pstart < pend)
{
swap(pstart++, pend--);
}
}
int main()
{
char pstring[] = "asfasd Lucy Beverman";
auto pstart = std::begin(pstring);
auto pend = std::end(pstring);
pend -= 2; // end points 1 past the null character, so have to go back 2
std::cout << pstring << std::endl;
reverse_string(pstart, pend);
std::cout << pstring << std::endl;
return 0;
}
you can also do it like this:
#include <iostream>
#include <cstring>
using namespace std;
string reverse(char word[20]);
int main()
{
char Cstring[20];
cout<<"enter a word: ";
cin>>Cstring;
string results = reverse(Cstring);
cout <<results;
}
string reverse(char word[20])
{
char a='a';
char b='b';
char *front=&a;
char *rear=&b;
for (int i=0;i< (strlen(word)/2);i++)
{
*front=word[i];
*rear=word[strlen(word)-1-i];
word[i]=*rear;
word[strlen(word)-1-i]=*front;
}
return word;
}
it successfully works on my system ,i.e. on emacs+gcc on windows 7
Taken from C How To Program Deitel & Deitel 8th edition:
void reverse(const char * const sPtr)
{
if (sPtr[0] == '\0')
return;
else
reverse(&sPtr[1]);
putchar(sPtr[0]);
}

Char array sorting and removing duplicates

I am trying to do some array manipulations.
I am doing char array sorting and duplicates removal here.
Your comments are welcome. Havent done much testing and error handling here though.
#include<stdafx.h>
#include<stdlib.h>
#include<stdio.h>
#include<string>
using namespace std;
void sort(char *& arr)
{
char temp;
for(int i=0;i<strlen(arr);i++)
{
for(int j=i+1;j<strlen(arr);j++)
{
if(arr[i] > arr[j])
{
temp = arr[i];
arr[i] = arr[j];
arr[j] = temp;
}
}
}
}
bool ispresent(char *uniqueArr, char * arr)
{
bool isfound = false;
for(int i=0;i<strlen(arr);i++)
{
for(int j=0;j<=strlen(uniqueArr);j++)
{
if(arr[i]== uniqueArr[j])
{
isfound = true;
return isfound;
}
else
isfound = false;
}
}
return isfound;
}
char * removeduplicates(char *&arr)
{
char * uniqqueArr = strdup(""); // To make this char array modifiable
int index = 0;
bool dup = false;
while(*arr!=NULL)
{
dup = ispresent(uniqqueArr, arr);
if(dup == true)
{}//do nothing
else// copy the char to new char array.
{
uniqqueArr[index] = *arr;
index++;
}
arr++;
}
return uniqqueArr;
}
int main()
{
char *arr = strdup("saaangeetha");
// if strdup() is not used , access violation writing to
//location occurs at arr[i] = arr[j].
//This makes the constant string modifiable
sort(arr);
char * uniqueArr = removeduplicates(arr);
}
If you use std::string, your code (which is actually C-Style) can be written in C++ Style in just these lines:
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <algorithm>
int main() {
std::string s= "saaangeetha";
std::sort(s.begin(), s.end());
std::string::iterator it = std::unique (s.begin(), s.end());
s.resize( it - s.begin());
std::cout << s ;
return 0;
}
Output: (all duplicates removed)
aeghnst
Demo : http://ideone.com/pHpPh
If you want char* at the end, then you can do this:
const char *uniqueChars = s.c_str(); //after removing the duplicates!
If I were doing it, I think I'd do the job quite a bit differently. If you can afford to ignore IBM mainframes, I'd do something like this:
unsigned long bitset = 0;
char *arr = "saaangeetha";
char *pos;
for (pos=arr; *pos; ++pos)
if (isalpha(*pos))
bitset |= 1 << (tolower(*pos)-'a');
This associates one bit in bitset with each possible letter. It then walks through the string and for each letter in the string, sets the associated bit in bitset. To print out the letters once you're done, you'd walk through bitset and print out the associated letter if that bit was set.
If you do care about IBM mainframes, you can add a small lookup table:
static char const *letters = "abcdefghijklkmnopqrstuvwxyz";
and use strchr to find the correct position for each letter.
Edit: If you're using C++ rather than C (as the tag said when I wrote what's above), you can simplify the code a bit at the expense of using some extra storage (and probably being minutely slower):
std::string arr = "saaangeetha";
std::set<char> letters((arr.begin()), arr.end());
std::copy(letters.begin(), letters.end(), std::ostream_iterator<char>(std::cout, " "));
Note, however, that while these appear the same for the test input, they can behave differently -- the previous version screens out anything but letters (and converts them all to lower case), but this distinguishes upper from lower case, and shows all non-alphabetic characters in the output as well.
char *arr = "saangeetha";
arr is pointing to read only section where string literal saangeetha is stored. So, it cannot be modified and is the reason for access violation error. Instead you need to do -
char arr[] = "sangeetha"; // Now, the string literal can be modified because a copy is made.

How can I find all permutations of a string without using recursion?

Can someone help me with this: This is a program to find all the permutations of a string of any length. Need a non-recursive form of the same. ( a C language implementation is preferred)
using namespace std;
string swtch(string topermute, int x, int y)
{
string newstring = topermute;
newstring[x] = newstring[y];
newstring[y] = topermute[x]; //avoids temp variable
return newstring;
}
void permute(string topermute, int place)
{
if(place == topermute.length() - 1)
{
cout<<topermute<<endl;
}
for(int nextchar = place; nextchar < topermute.length(); nextchar++)
{
permute(swtch(topermute, place, nextchar),place+1);
}
}
int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
if(argc!=2)
{
cout<<"Proper input is 'permute string'";
return 1;
}
permute(argv[1], 0);
return 0;
}
Another approach would be to allocate an array of n! char arrays and fill them in the same way that you would by hand.
If the string is "abcd", put all of the "a" chars in position 0 for the first n-1! arrays, in position 1 for the next n-1! arrays, etc. Then put all of the "b" chars in position 1 for the first n-2! arrays, etc, all of the "c" chars in position 2 for the first n-3! arrays, etc, and all of the "d" chars in position 3 for the first n-4! arrays, etc, using modulo n arithmetic in each case to move from position 3 to position 0 as you are filling out the arrays.
No swapping is necessary and you know early on if you have enough memory to store the results or not.
A stack based non-recursive equivalent of your code:
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
struct State
{
State (std::string topermute_, int place_, int nextchar_, State* next_ = 0)
: topermute (topermute_)
, place (place_)
, nextchar (nextchar_)
, next (next_)
{
}
std::string topermute;
int place;
int nextchar;
State* next;
};
std::string swtch (std::string topermute, int x, int y)
{
std::string newstring = topermute;
newstring[x] = newstring[y];
newstring[y] = topermute[x]; //avoids temp variable
return newstring;
}
void permute (std::string topermute, int place = 0)
{
// Linked list stack.
State* top = new State (topermute, place, place);
while (top != 0)
{
State* pop = top;
top = pop->next;
if (pop->place == pop->topermute.length () - 1)
{
std::cout << pop->topermute << std::endl;
}
for (int i = pop->place; i < pop->topermute.length (); ++i)
{
top = new State (swtch (pop->topermute, pop->place, i), pop->place + 1, i, top);
}
delete pop;
}
}
int main (int argc, char* argv[])
{
if (argc!=2)
{
std::cout<<"Proper input is 'permute string'";
return 1;
}
else
{
permute (argv[1]);
}
return 0;
}
I've tried to make it C-like and avoided c++ STL containers and member functions (used a constructor for simplicity though).
Note, the permutations are generated in reverse order to the original.
I should add that using a stack in this way is just simulating recursion.
First one advice - don't pass std:string arguments by value. Use const references
string swtch(const string& topermute, int x, int y)
void permute(const string & topermute, int place)
It will save you a lot of unnecessary copying.
As for C++ solution, you have functions std::next_permutation and std::prev_permutation in algorithm header. So you can write:
int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
if(argc!=2)
{
cout<<"Proper input is 'permute string'" << endl;
return 1;
}
std::string copy = argv[1];
// program argument and lexically greater permutations
do
{
std::cout << copy << endl;
}
while (std::next_permutation(copy.begin(), copy.end());
// lexically smaller permutations of argument
std::string copy = argv[1];
while (std::prev_permutation(copy.begin(), copy.end())
{
std::cout << copy << endl;
}
return 0;
}
As for C solution, you have to change variables types from std::string to char * (ugh, and you have to manage memory properly). I think similar approach - writing functions
int next_permutation(char * begin, char * end);
int prev_permutation(char * begin, char * end);
with same semantics as STL functions - will do. You can find source code for std::next_permutation with explanation here. I hope you can manage to write a similar code that works on char * (BTW std::next_permutation can work with char * with no problems, but you wanted C solution) as I am to lazy to do it by myself :-)
Have you tried using the STL? There is an algorithm called next_permutation which given a range will return true on each subsequent call until all permutations have been encountered. Works not only on strings but on any "sequence" type.
http://www.sgi.com/tech/stl/next_permutation.html
This solves the problem without recursion. The only issue is that it will generate duplicate output in the case where a character is repeated in the string.
#include<iostream.h>
#include<conio.h>
#include<stdio.h>
#include<string.h>
int factorial(int n)
{
int fact=1;
for(int i=2;i<=n;i++)
fact*=i;
return fact;
}
char *str;
void swap(int i,int j)
{
char temp=str[i];
str[i]=str[j];
str[j]=temp;
}
void main()
{
clrscr();
int len,fact,count=1;
cout<<"Enter the string:";
gets(str);
len=strlen(str);
fact=factorial(len);
for(int i=0;i<fact;i++)
{
int j=i%(len-1);
swap(j,j+1);
cout<<"\n"<<count++<<". ";
for(int k=0;k<len;k++)
cout<<str[k];
}
getch();
}
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;
void permuteString(string& str, int i)
{
for (int j = 0; j < i; j++) {
swap(str[j], str[j+1]);
cout << str << endl;
}
}
int factorial(int n)
{
if (n != 1) return n*factorial(n-1);
}
int main()
{
string str;
cout << "Enter string: ";
cin >> str;
cout << str.length() << endl;
int fact = factorial(str.length());
int a = fact/((str.length()-1));
for (int i = 0; i < a; i++) {
permuteString(str, (str.length()-1));
}
}