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cgetchar

Character Count in C

The folllowing C Program is to calculate the character Count .

#include <stdio.h >
int main()
{
   int nc = 0;
   while (getchar() != EOF)
   {
      ++nc;
      printf("%d\n", nc); 
   }
    return 0;
}

When I Enter a character , for example 'y' in the terminal , The output returns as follows

1
2

How does this calculation happens and why 2 is in the output?

Solution

  • I suppose you didn't know but when you press enter you just insert a newline character or '\n'. If you want to get the correct result ignore the newline character or just decrease the nc by one.

    #include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
  int nc = 0;
  while (getchar() != EOF)
  {
    ++nc;
    printf("Character count is:%d\n", nc - 1);
  }
  return 0;
}

    Even better code:

    #include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
  int nc = 0;
  for(;;)
  {
    do
      ++nc;
    while (getchar() != '\n');
    printf("Character count is:%d\n", nc - 1);
    nc = 0;
  }
}

    The updated code will reset your counter back to 0.