Counter is not incrementing properly

Question

my counter does not seem to increment (for c programming)

int ch;
int counterX = 0;
int counterY = 0;

while(( ch = getchar()) != EOF ) {

    if (ch == 'X'){
        counterX = counterX + 1;
        }
    if (ch == 'Y'){
        counterY = counterY + 1;
        }
}

ive done some testing and I the number for counterX and counterY doesnt seem to increase, regardless of my input. Please help!

Answer 1

That should work, provided you add a closing brace, and the rest of the program. And provided you actually have X and/or Y appearing on the input stream.

For example, the following complete program:

#include <stdio.h>

int main (void) {
    int ch, counterX = 0, counterY = 0;

    while ((ch = getchar()) != EOF) {
        if (ch == 'X')
            counterX = counterX + 1;
        if (ch == 'Y')
            counterY = counterY + 1;
    }
    printf ("X = %d, Y = %d\n", counterX, counterY);
    return 0;
}

will, when run with echo XYZZY | testprog, output:

X = 1, Y = 2

---

As an aside, if you a good enough C coder to use the:

while ((a = something) == somethingElse)

construct, you should probably know about the counterX++ shorthand as well :-)