The need:
This program is basically solution of a problem I found on internet. Problem statement is:
There is a purse filled with some coins of gold, silver ans copper. A person draws coins one by one and notes down the type of coin each time. He writes g for gold, s for silver and c for copper coin. Thus a character string is formed. You have to write a function countCoins() which takes that string as parameter and returns count each type of coin. As we know that a function can return only single value, we have 2 options left to return all three counts with one function:
1. store 3 answers in some contiguous location and return a pointer to that location.
2. If possible, club all three variables to make a single variable and return that single variable. Yes it is possible, we can make a structure variable containing all three counts and return that structure variable.
There is a purse filled with some coins of gold, silver ans copper. A person draws coins one by one and notes down the type of coin each time. He writes g for gold, s for silver and c for copper coin. Thus a character string is formed. You have to write a function countCoins() which takes that string as parameter and returns count each type of coin. As we know that a function can return only single value, we have 2 options left to return all three counts with one function:
1. store 3 answers in some contiguous location and return a pointer to that location.
2. If possible, club all three variables to make a single variable and return that single variable. Yes it is possible, we can make a structure variable containing all three counts and return that structure variable.
The code:
----------------------------------------------------------
#include<stdio.h>
typedef struct
{
int silver;
int copper;
int gold;
}CoinPurse;
CoinPurse countCoin(char *);
int main()
{
int i;
CoinPurse a,*b;
char *coins="gscgcc";
a=countCoin(coins);
printf("Coppper coins are %d\n",a.copper);
printf("Gold coins are %d\n",a.gold);
printf("Silver coins are %d\n",a.silver);
return 0;
}
CoinPurse countCoin(char *coins)
{
CoinPurse x;
x.copper=0;
x.gold=0;
x.silver=0;
while(*coins)
{
switch(*coins)
{
case 'c': x.copper++;
break;
case 'g': x.gold++;
break;
case 's': x.silver++;
break;
default: break;
}
coins++;
}
return x;
}----------------------------------------------------------
Approach:The approach is very simple. The structure CoinPurse contains counter for each type of coin. the function countCoin() takes a character string , examines each character and based on that increments the correct counter. after the string is finished, the structure containing the counts is returned by the function countCoin(). In this program i have given the character string *coins as "gscgcc" soit is clear that there are 2 gold, 1 silver and 3 copper coins which can be verified by the program output.
