"The C Programming Language", 2nd edition, Kernighan and Ritchie

Answer to Exercise 1-16, page 30

Solution by Richard Heathfield

Revise the main routine of the longest-line program so it will correctly print the length of arbitrarily long input lines, and as much as possible of the text.

/* This is the first program exercise where the spec isn't entirely
 * clear. The spec says, 'Revise the main routine', but the true
 * length of an input line can only be determined by modifying
 * getline. So that's what we'll do. getline will now return the
 * actual length of the line rather than the number of characters
 * read into the array passed to it.
 */

#include <stdio.h>

#define MAXLINE 1000 /* maximum input line size */

int getline(char line[], int maxline);
void copy(char to[], char from[]);

/* print longest input line */
int main(void)
{
  int len;               /* current line length */
  int max;               /* maximum length seen so far */
  char line[MAXLINE];    /* current input line */
  char longest[MAXLINE]; /* longest line saved here */

  max = 0;

  while((len = getline(line, MAXLINE)) > 0)
  {
    printf("%d: %s", len, line);

    if(len > max)
    {
      max = len;
      copy(longest, line);
    }
  }
  if(max > 0)
  {
    printf("Longest is %d characters:\n%s", max, longest);
  }
  printf("\n");
  return 0;
}

/* getline: read a line into s, return length */
int getline(char s[], int lim)
{
  int c, i, j;

  for(i = 0, j = 0; (c = getchar())!=EOF && c != '\n'; ++i)
  {
    if(i < lim - 1)
    {
      s[j++] = c;
    }
  }
  if(c == '\n')
  {
    if(i <= lim - 1)
    {
      s[j++] = c;
    }
    ++i;
  }
  s[j] = '\0';
  return i;
}

/* copy: copy 'from' into 'to'; assume 'to' is big enough */
void copy(char to[], char from[])
{
  int i;

  i = 0;
  while((to[i] = from[i]) != '\0')
  {
    ++i;
  }
}




Chris Sidi, however, was not convinced - he thought this answer was "too easy", so he checked with bwk, who agreed. Chris writes: "Looks like Mr. Kernighan meant for "main routine" in Exercise 1-16 to refer to function main(), saying your solution of modifying getline() is "too easy." :) (Though I think your solution shouldn't be removed from the Answers web site, just complimented with another one that only modifies main())"

So - any takers?



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