Stuck in Loop Collatz Conjecture Attempt in C

Question

There is a logic flaw within my code that I can't seem to pass 2^31 − 1 as an input. Here is a fragment of my code.

#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
long input = 0;
long temp = 0;
int count = 0;
printf("Enter a positive integer ( or 0 to quit): ");
scanf("%ld", &input);
if(input == 0)
{
    printf("Quit.");
}
else
{
    temp = input;
    while (temp != 1)
    {
        if(temp %2 ==0)
        {
            temp = temp/2;
            count++;


        } else
        {
            temp = 3*temp + 1;
            count++;
        }

    }
return 0;
}

I have tried changing the size of my input to long => long long and it still get stuck within this area after Debugging it. Please provide some feedback Thanks!

Answer 1

Assuming your system has a long of 64 bits, then changing it to work with unsigned long, including scanf(), seems to work fine:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <assert.h>

int main() {
    unsigned long input;
    assert(sizeof(input) * 8 >= 64);

    while (1) {
        printf("Enter a positive integer (or 0 to quit): ");
        (void) scanf("%lu", &input);

        if (input == 0) {
            break;
        }

        unsigned int count = 0;

        while (input != 1) {
            if (input % 2 == 0) {
                input /= 2;
            } else {
                input = 3 * input + 1;
            }
            count++;
        }

        printf("%d\n", count);
    }

    printf("Quit.\n");

    return 0;
}

USAGE

> ./a.out
Enter a positive integer (or 0 to quit): 2147483647
450
Enter a positive integer (or 0 to quit): 0
Quit.
>

Otherwise, find some other 64 bit type (long long?) to use. Python works as it has infinitely large integers.