I am new in this website and C++. I am an undergraduate student and just starting to use c++. I have some knowledge on FORTRAN but c++ is kind of vague for me.
Now here is my problem,
I have a data file which has 9 rows and more 295242 columns. All the data items in the data files are numbers (decimal numbers not binary). The 7th row has only 0s and 1s. I want to store the rows in a separate file which follows the row containing 1 until there is another row having 1 in 7th column and put it in a do loop so that it could do the same thing with other rows also.
I tried using if statements with conditions stated with the help of pointers but I couldn't work out. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
Here's a brief table of how pointers map to normal (i.e. non-pointer variables) and vice versa (assume you've declared the pointer as int *varptr and your regular variable as int v):
Dereferencing a pointer: *varptr v
Passing the variable by reference: varptr &v
Leave a comment if you have further questions and I'll do my best to provide more information.
Related
I am trying to create a C++ program that will move an X on a 4x4 grid and display each move. We are not allowed to use arrays because we haven't learned how yet. I know that I am supposed to use 16 if/else statements, but I am not sure what to do from there. I know there is an easier way than mapping out each possible option because that would take forever!!! What do I do???
EDIT: It is only allowed to move up/down/left/right. And what I mean by display each move it is first supposed to display the user's starting point (which I've already set up) and then it is supposed to print grids with successive moves on them including all of the previous moves until it reaches the end point.
Note: I originally wrote this answer based on assumptions about the task that turned out to be wrong. However, I'll leave the answer up as I believe it might still contain useful information for the OP.
When you have x different possible situations, you don't always need an if/else with x branches. The trick is to find a way to use the same computation (typically one or more mathematical expressions, and possibly loops) to handle all or most of the situations.
In this case, there are indeed 16 different positions on a 4x4 grid, and one way to represent a position is to store its row and column number (each a value between 0 and 3). By using two loops, one inside the other (nested loops), you can generate all 16 combinations of row and column position. I'll assume now that you're supposed to print e.g. . on the empty cells of the grid. Inside the inner loop, you need to figure out whether you should print a . or an X. What question should you ask in order to figure that out? Simply "is the row and column number that the nested loops are currently at the same row and column number as the location of the X?"
Edit after seeing your update: Even when working with a grid, arrays are only needed when you have to store information about every cell, so one can sometimes get away without an array if you can generate the grid information from fewer pieces of information (such as the position of the X). However, if you need to keep track of the previous positions, you need an array (either one- or two-dimensional) in order to do it elegantly. I would say that the "no arrays" restriction of this task is not educational, as it forces an unnatural and very cumbersome way to solve this task. :-( (However, if your instructor subsequently gives the same task and allows you to use loops, it will be a good demonstration of why loops are useful.)
What you could do is to use 16 bool variables (all set to false initially) with names such as grid00, grid01, grid02, grid03, grid10, ..., grid33. Then make two methods, bool isOccupied(int row, int column) and void occupy(int row, int column) that use 16-way if/else statements to allow you to easily read and change the variable that corresponds to a given position.
I know that I am supposed to use 16 if/else statements, but I am not
sure what to do from there.
If this is a constraint on your solution given to your by your instructor, that means that you will need to handle each of the 16 possible grid locations in a separate {} block. You'll have to have an enum representing each of the pairs. like:
e_1_1, e_1_2, e_1_3, e_1_4,
e_2_1, e_2_2, e_2_3, e_2_4,
e_3_1, e_3_2, e_3_3, e_3_4,
e_4_1, e_4_2, e_4_3, e_4_4,
and you'll have to manually update the current position to a new one in the switch statement. Keep track of your current position in a variable called something like 'position'.
I know there is an easier way than mapping out each possible option
because that would take forever!!!
Welcome to programming. ;-)
Copy and paste is your friend and this problem of having to write a lot of similar but slightly different code is fairly common to many programming tasks. Becoming a good programmer means learning how to avoid largely duplicate code when possible. You are not there yet, or you wouldn't have to ask. So this first step will be an important lesson for you. A bit of pain will help you appreciate how much better the approach you will use the next time will be.
But this isn't that much work. An experienced C++ programmer could knock this out in less than 5 to 10 minutes. Moderately experienced, perhaps 20 to 30. It might take a learning programmer a few hours or more.
There are more concise ways to handle this problem without requiring 16 separate blocks, however, none of them are easier to understand. If this a requirement for a class learning project, then you will find it beneficial to do it first this way, then as a next step, try to do it with more complex logic.
Suggestions
An experienced programmer would define the move possibilities as an enum. Then the moves would be handled inside the {} blocks for the if statements using a switch statement that handled each of the four enums corresponding to the four moves. If you don't know the switch statement yet you can use an if ... else if ... else if ... that checks for each of the four moves.
Start with handling just the first upper left corner position moves for a smaller 2 x 2 grid. Then add each of the other three positions for the 2 x 2 grid. Once you have that working you should be able to understand easily how to extend the solution to a 4 x 4 and arbitrarily larger grid.
You'll want to have a function that prints the position array that gets called after every move. For now, you'll have to check the value of the enum and print manually. Something like:
Is position == e_1_1? print '* else print '_'
Is position == e_1_2? print '* else print '_'
Is position == e_1_3? print '* else print '_'
Is position == e_1_4? print '* else print '_'
print a newline
Is position == e_2_1? print '* else print '_'
Is position == e_2_2? print '* else print '_'
Is position == e_2_3? print '* else print '_'
Is position == e_2_4? print '* else print '_'
etc.
Some pointers for easy debugging:
Set the values for an enum for up, down, left, and right to something you can print out and follow easily, i.e. e_up = 'u' and e_down = 'd'. That will make it easier to debug if you don't have an IDE that will let you easily see the enum values, and you can print out the moves directly in the beginning.
Make your changes to the code in small increments. Run the code and once you know that the part you added works, move on. If you add too much at once it is much harder to figure out where things are broken, especially when you are new.
Future Solution with Arrays
Some hints: You'll want to use a two-dimensional array.
Try this on a 2 x 2 array first to make your life simpler. Then when the logic works, change the array size. To make this process easier use a const integer to define a value that you use to define the arrays and the printing using a for loop so that when you change the constant from:
const int array_size = 2
to
const int array_size = 4
the rest of the code will just work. For extra credit, support arrays of differing height and width by using separate constants for array_height and array_width. Learn to do it well and the way a pro would do it and you'll develop pro habits and earn pro wages much more quickly.
Remember to use a for loop for printing the rows and columns that uses the constants you defined.
You'll want to have the code running a loop looking for input, then processing the move, then printing out the new grid.
Apologies for such an entirely uninformed question, but I don't know any SAS and just need to know what one line of code does, so I hope someone can help.
I have a loop over an array of variables, and an if clause that is based on a comparison to .Z, but this variable is defined nowhere, so I'm guessing this is some sort of SAS syntax trick. Here's the loop:
ARRAY PTYPE{*} X4216 X4316 X4416 X4816 X4916 X5016;
DO I=1 TO DIM(PTYPE);
IF (PTYPE{I}<=.Z) THEN PUT &ID= PTYPE{I}=;
END;
So on the first iteration, the loop would check whether the value in X4216 is smaller than .Z, and then...? ID is another varuable in the dataset, but I have no idea what's happening on the right hand side of that if clause. I've briefly consulted the SAS documentation to figure out that ampersands refer to macros, but my knowledge of SAS is to limited to understand what's happening.
Can anyone enlighten me?
.Z is a special missing value. In SAS a missing value (what you might call a NULL value) is indicated by a period. There are also 27 other special missing values that are indicated by a period followed by a letter or an underscore. The missing values are distinct and are all considered smaller than any actual number. .Z is the "largest". So PTYPE{I}<=.Z is basically testing if the value is missing. You could instead use MISSING(PTYPE{I}) to make the same test. The right hand side is writing out the name and the value of the variable in the array with a missing value and also the name and value of the variable named in the macro variable ID.
I'm still quite new to programming -- about two months in -- so if this is a really basic question, then I apologize. Going along with that, my terminology might be completely off. If it is, I'd greatly appreciate any help you might be able to offer with telling me the proper terms. I searched around the forums here for a bit, but couldn't find anything that answered my question. If you're aware of a topic that does, then please just link it below.
Onto the question.
Let's say that I have an external text file with a bunch of information in it. The information is divided into items, each item delineated from the next by '::'. Each item is divided into four fields, each field delineated from the next by '\'.
What I want to do is take one item's information out of the text file and place it into an array called info. I want to then take info and pass it to another function. This function will create four new arrays and then portion out field 1 to array 1, field 2 to array 2, etc.
Basically, how do I take an array, take a portion of that array and give it to another variable, then copy another portion of that array and give it to another array.
Example:
The External Text File looks like the following:
26::Female::Kentucky::Trauma\\34::Male::Michigan::Elective\\85::Male::Unknown::Trauma\\18:Female::Washington::Emergent
Using fstream, I then take "26::Female:Kentucky::Trauma" and put it into an array called 'info', which is then passed to a function called Sort(char info[]).
How do I get Sort(char info[]) to take an array with "26::Female::Kentucky::Trauma" and turn it into four arrays such as:
Age: 26
Sex: Female
Location: Kentucky
Reason for Admission: Trauma
EDIT
Array 1 looks like:
26::Female::Kentucky::Trauma
I then create four char arrays called, Age, Sex, Location, Reason. How do I get 26 into the Age array, Female into the Sex array, Kentucky into the Location array, and Trauma, into the Reason array?
I know that I could do this at the stage where I'm reading in from an external file, but it seems easier to do it this way for my purposes.
Thank you for your time.
Look at the documentation for the string class. The functions find_first_of and substr will be useful. Split the string when it finds :: or //. For example, 26::Female::Kentucky::Trauma would be split into 26 and Female::Kentucky::Trauma. This sounds like it may be an assignment, so I will not give a complete solution, but this should be enough to get you going.
I've got experience in a lot of other programming languages, but I'm having a lot of difficulty with Stata syntax. I've got a statement that evaluates with no problem if I put in values, but I can't figure out why it's not evaluating variables like I expect it to.
gen j=5
forvalues i = 1(1)5 {
replace TrustBusiness_local=`i' if TrustBusiness_local2==`j'
replace j=`j'-1
}
If I replace i and j with 1 and 5 respectively, like I'm expecting to happen from the code above, then it works fine, but I get an if not found error otherwise, which hasn't produced meaningful results when Googled. Does anyone see what I don't see? I hate to brute-force something that could so simply be done with a loop.
Easy to understand once you approach it the right way!
Problem 1. You never defined local macro j. That in itself is not an error, but it often leads to errors. Macros that don't exist are equivalent to empty strings, so Stata sees in this example the code
if TrustBusiness_local2==`j'
as
if TrustBusiness_local2==
which is illegal; hence the error message.
Problem 2. There is no connection of principle between a variable you called j and a local macro called j but referenced using single quotes. A variable in Stata is a variable (namely, column) in your dataset; that doesn't mean a variable otherwise in the sense of any programming language. Variables meaning single values can be held in Stata within scalars or within macros. Putting a constant into a variable, Stata sense, is legal, but usually bad style. If you have millions of observations, for example, you now have a column j with millions of values of 5 within it.
Problem 3. You could, legally, go
local j "j"
so that now the local macro j contains the text "j", which depending on how you use it could be interpreted as a variable name. It's hard to see why you would want to do that here, but it would be legal.
Problem 4. Your whole example doesn't even need a loop as it appears to mean
replace TrustBusiness_local= 6 - TrustBusiness_local2 if inlist(TrustBusiness_local2, 1,2,3,4,5)
and, depending on your data, the if qualifier could be redundant. Flipping 5(1)1 to 1(1)5 is just a matter of subtracting from 6.
Problem 5. Your example written as a loop in Stata style could be
local j = 5
forvalues i = 1/5 {
replace TrustBusiness_local=`i' if TrustBusiness_local2==`j'
local j=`j'-1
}
and it could be made more concise, but given Problem 4 that no loop is needed, I will leave it there.
Problem 6. What you talking about are, incidentally, not if statements so far as Stata is concerned, as the if qualifier used in your examples is not the same as the if command.
The problem of translating one language's jargon into another can be challenging. See my comments at http://www.stata.com/statalist/archive/2008-08/msg01258.html After experience in other languages, the macro manipulations of Stata seemed at first strange to me too; they are perhaps best understood as equivalent to shell programming.
I wouldn't try to learn Stata by Googling. Read [U] from beginning to end. (A similar point was made in the reply to your previous question at use value label in if command in Stata but you don't want to believe it!)
The following function returns a data.frame with two columns:
fetch_count_by_day=function(con){
q="SELECT t,count(*) AS count FROM data GROUP BY t"
dbGetQuery(con,q) #Returns a data frame
}
t is a DATE column, so output looks like:
t count(*)
1 2011-09-22 1438
...
All I'm really interested in is if any records for a given date already exist; but I will also use the count as a sanity check.
In C++ I'd return a std::map<std::string,int> or std::unordered_map<std::string,int> (*).
In PHP I'd use an associative array with the date as the key.
What is the best data structure in R? Is it a 2-column data.frame? My first thought was to turn the t column into rownames:
...
d=dbGetQuery(con,q)
rownames(d)=d[,1]
d$t=NULL
But data.frame rownames are not unique, so conceptually it does not quite fit. I'm also not sure if it makes using it any quicker.
(Any and all definitions of "best": quickest, least memory, code clarity, least surprise for experienced R developers, etc. Maybe there is one solution for all; if not then I'd like to understand the trade-offs and when to choose each alternative.)
*: (for C++) If benchmarking showed this was a bottleneck, I might convert the datestamp to a YYYYMMDD integer and use std::unordered_map<int,int>; knowing the data only covers a few years I might even use a block of memory with one int per day between min(t) and max(t) (wrapping all that in a class).
Contingency tables are actually arrays (or matrices) and can very easily be created.The dimnames hold the values and the array/matrix at its "core" holds the count data. The "table" and "tapply" functions are natural creators. You access the counts with "[" and use dimnames( ) followed by an "[" to get you the row annd column names. I would say it was wiser to use the "Date" class for dates than storing in "character" vectors.