Good Questions In C

!!Enjoy!!!

 31.

If we have declared an array as global in one file and we are using it in another file then why doesn't the sizeof operator works on an extern array?

Ans: An extern array is of incomplete type as it does not contain the size. Hence we cannot use sizeof operator, as it cannot get the size of the array declared in another file. To resolve this use any of one the following two solutions:
1. In the same file declare one more variable that holds the size of array. For example,

array.c

int arr[5] ;
int arrsz = sizeof ( arr ) ;

myprog.c

extern int arr[] ;
extern int arrsz ;
2. Define a macro which can be used in an array
declaration. For example,

myheader.h

#define SZ 5

array.c

#include "myheader.h"
int arr[SZ] ;

myprog.c

#include "myheader.h"
extern int arr[SZ] ;

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32.

How do I write printf( ) so that the width of a field can be specified at runtime?

Ans: This is shown in following code snippet.

main( )
{
int w, no ;
printf ( "Enter number and the width for the
number field:" ) ;
scanf ( "%d%d", &no, &w ) ;
printf ( "%*d", w, no ) ;
}
Here, an '*' in the format specifier in printf( ) indicates that an int value from the argument list should be used for the field width.
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33.

How to find the row and column dimension of a given 2-D array?

Ans: Whenever we initialize a 2-D array at the same place where it has been declared, it is not necessary to mention the row dimension of an array. The row and column dimensions of such an array can be determined programmatically as shown in following program.

void main( )
{
int a[][3] = { 0, 1, 2,
9,-6, 8,
7, 5, 44,
23, 11,15 } ;

int c = sizeof ( a[0] ) / sizeof ( int ) ;
int r = ( sizeof ( a ) / sizeof ( int ) ) / c ;
int i, j ;

printf ( "\nRow: %d\nCol: %d\n", r, c ) ;
for ( i = 0 ; i < r ; i++ )
{
for ( j = 0 ; j < c ; j++ )
printf ( "%d ", a[i][j] ) ;
printf ( "\n" ) ;
}
}
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34.

The access( ) function...

The access( ) function checks for the existence of a file and also determines whether it can be read, written to or executed. This function takes two arguments the filename and an integer indicating the access mode. The values 6, 4, 2, and 1 checks for read/write, read, write and execute permission of a given file, whereas value 0 checks whether the file exists or not. Following program demonstrates how we can use access( ) function to check if a given file exists.


#include <io.h>

main( )
{
char fname[67] ;

printf ( "\nEnter name of file to open" ) ;
gets ( fname ) ;

if ( access ( fname, 0 ) != 0 )
{
printf ( "\nFile does not exist." ) ;
return ;
}
}

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35.

How do I convert a floating-point number to a string?

Ans: Use function gcvt( ) to convert a floating-point number to a string. Following program demonstrates the use of this function.
#include <stdlib.h>

main( )
{
char str[25] ;
float no ;
int dg = 5 ; /* significant digits */

no = 14.3216 ;
gcvt ( no, dg, str ) ;
printf ( "String: %s\n", str ) ;
}

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36.
What is a stack ?

Ans: The stack is a region of memory within which our programs temporarily store data as they execute. For example, when a program passes parameters to functions, C places the parameters on the stack. When the function completes, C removes the items from the stack. Similarly, when a function declares local variables, C stores the variable's values on the stack during the function's execution. Depending on the program's use of functions and parameters, the amount of stack space that a program requires will differ.
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37.
Allocating memory for a 3-D array

#include "alloc.h"
#define MAXX 3
#define MAXY 4
#define MAXZ 5
main( )
{
int ***p, i, j, k ;
p = ( int *** ) malloc ( MAXX * sizeof ( int ** ) ) ;
for ( i = 0 ; i < MAXX ; i++ )
{
p[i] = ( int ** ) malloc ( MAXY * sizeof ( int * ) ) ;
for ( j = 0 ; j < MAXY ; j++ )
p[i][j] = ( int * ) malloc ( MAXZ * sizeof ( int ) ) ;
}
for ( k = 0 ; k < MAXZ ; k++ )
{
for ( i = 0 ; i < MAXX ; i++ )
{
for ( j = 0 ; j < MAXY ; j++ )
{
p[i][j][k] = i + j + k ;
printf ( "%d ", p[i][j][k] ) ;
}
printf ( "\n" ) ;
}
printf ( "\n\n" ) ;
}
}
Data Structures
How to distinguish between a binary tree and a tree?

Ans: A node in a tree can have any number of branches. While a binary tree is a tree structure in which any node can have at most two branches. For binary trees we distinguish between the subtree on the left and subtree on the right, whereas for trees the order of the subtrees is irrelevant.
Consider the following figure...

This above figure shows two binary trees, but these binary trees are different. The first has an empty right subtree while the second has an empty left subtree. If the above are regarded as trees (not the binary trees), then they are same despite the fact that they are drawn differently. Also, an empty binary tree can exist, but there is no tree having zero nodes.
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38.
How do I use the function ldexp( ) in a program?

Ans: The math function ldexp( ) is used while solving the complex mathematical equations. This function takes two arguments, a double value and an int respectively. The order in which ldexp( ) function performs calculations is ( n * pow ( 2, exp ) ) where n is the double value and exp is the integer. The following program demonstrates the use of this function.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <math.h>

void main( )
{
double ans ;
double n = 4 ;

ans = ldexp ( n, 2 ) ;
printf ( "\nThe ldexp value is : %lf\n", ans ) ;
}
Here, ldexp( ) function would get expanded as ( 4 * 2 * 2 ), and the output would be the ldexp value is : 16.000000
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39.
Can we get the mantissa and exponent form of a given number?

Ans: The function frexp( ) splits the given number into a mantissa and exponent form. The function takes two arguments, the number to be converted as a double value and an int to store the exponent form. The function returns the mantissa part as a double value. Following example demonstrates the use of this function.

#include <math.h>
#include <stdio.h>

void main( )
{
double mantissa, number ;
int exponent ;

number = 8.0 ;
mantissa = frexp ( number, &exponent ) ;

printf ( "The number %lf is ", number ) ;
printf ( "%lf times two to the ", mantissa ) ;
printf ( "power of %d\n", exponent ) ;

return 0 ;
}
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40.

How do I write code that executes certain function only at program termination?
Ans: Use atexit( ) function as shown in following program.

#include <stdlib.h>
main( )
{
int ch ;
void fun ( void ) ;
atexit ( fun ) ;
// code
}
void fun( void )
{
printf ( "\nTerminate program......" ) ;
getch( ) ;
}
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41.
What are memory models?
Ans: The compiler uses a memory model to determine how much memory is allocated to the program. The PC divides memory into blocks called segments of size 64 KB. Usually, program uses one segment for code and a second segment for data. A memory model defines the number of segments the compiler can use for each. It is important to know which memory model can be used for a program. If we use wrong memory model, the program might not have enough memory to execute. The problem can be solved using larger memory model. However, larger the memory model, slower is your program execution. So we must choose the smallest memory model that satisfies our program needs. Most of the compilers support memory models like tiny, small, medium, compact, large and huge.

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42.
How does C compiler store elements in a multi-dimensional array?

Ans: The compiler maps multi-dimensional arrays in two ways—Row major order and Column order. When the compiler places elements in columns of an array first then it is called column-major order. When the compiler places elements in rows of an array first then it is called row-major order. C compilers store multidimensional arrays in row-major order. For example, if there is a multi-dimensional array a[2][3], then according row-major order, the elements would get stored in memory following order:
a[0][0], a[0][1], a[0][2], a[1][0], a[1][1], a[1][2]
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43.

If the result of an _expression has to be stored to one of two variables, depending on a condition, can we use conditional operators as shown below?

( ( i < 10 ) ? j : k ) = l * 2 + p ;
Ans: No! The above statement is invalid. We cannot use the conditional operators in this fashion. The conditional operators like most operators, yields a value, and we cannot assign the value of an _expression to a value. However, we can use conditional operators as shown in following code snippet.

main( )
{
int i, j, k, l ;
i = 5 ; j = 10 ; k = 12, l = 1 ;
* ( ( i < 10 ) ? &j : &k ) = l * 2 + 14 ;
printf ( "i = %d j = %d k = %d l = %d", i, j, k, l ) ;
}

The output of the above program would be as given below:
i = 5 j = 16 k = 12 l = 1
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44.

How can I find the day of the week of a given date?

Ans: The following code snippet shows how to get the day of week from the given date.

dayofweek ( int yy, int mm, int dd )
{
/*Monday = 1 and Sunday = 0 */
/* month number >= 1 and <= 12, yy > 1752 or so */
static int arr[ ] = { 0, 3, 2, 5, 0, 3, 5, 1, 4, 6, 2, 4 } ;
yy = yy - mm < 3 ;
return ( yy + yy / 4 - yy / 100 + yy / 400 + arr[ mm - 1] + dd ) % 7 ;
}

void main( )
{
printf ( "\n\n\nDay of week : %d ", dayofweek ( 2002, 5, 18 ) ) ;
}
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45.

What's the difference between these two declarations?

struct str1 { ... } ;
typedef struct { ... } str2 ;
Ans : The first form declares a structure tag whereas the second declares a typedef. The main difference is that the second declaration is of a slightly more abstract type -- its users don't necessarily know that it is a structure, and the keyword struct is not used when declaring instances of it.
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46.

How do I print the contents of environment variables?

Ans:. The following program shows how to achieve this:
main( int argc, char *argv[ ], char *env[ ] )
{
int i = 0 ;
clrscr( ) ;
while ( env[ i ] )
printf ( "\n%s", env[ i++ ] ) ;
}

main( ) has the third command line argument env, which is an array of pointers to the strings. Each pointer points to an environment variable from the list of environment variables.
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47.
div( )...

The function div( ) divides two integers and returns the quotient and remainder. This function takes two integer values as arguments; divides first integer with the second one and returns the answer of division of type div_t. The data type div_t is a structure that contains two long ints, namely quot and rem, which store quotient and remainder of division respectively. The following example shows the use of div( ) function.

#include <stdlib.h>
void main( )
{
div_t res ;

res = div ( 32, 5 ) ;
printf ( "\nThe quotient = %d and remainder = %d ", res.quot, res.rem ) ;
}

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48.
What would the second and the third printf( ) output the following program?

main( )
{
char *str[ ] = {
"Good Morning"
"Good Evening"
"Good Afternoon"
} ;
printf ( "\nFirst string = %s", str[0] ) ;
printf ( "\nSecond string = %s", str[1] ) ;
printf ( "\nThird string = %s", str[2] ) ;
}
Ans: For the above given program, we expect the output as Good Evening and Good Afternoon, for the second and third printf( ). However, the output would be as shown below.

First string = Good MorningGood EveningGood Afternoon
Second string = ( null )
Third string =

What is missing in the above given code snippet is a comma separator which should separate the strings Good Morning, Good Evening and Good Afternoon. On adding comma, we would get the output as shown below.

First string = Good Morning
Second string = Good Evening
Third string = Good Afternoon
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49.

How do I use scanf( ) to read the date in the form 'dd-mm-yy' ?
Ans: There are two ways to read the date in the form of 'dd-mm-yy' one possible way is...

int dd, mm, yy ;
char ch ; /* for char '-' */
printf ( "\nEnter the date in the form of dd-mm-yy : " ) ;
scanf( "%d%c%d%c%d", &dd, &ch, &mm, &ch, &yy ) ;

And another best way is to use suppression character * as...

int dd, mm, yy ;
scanf( "%d%*c%d%*c%d", &dd, &mm, &yy ) ;

The suppression character * suppresses the input read from the standard input buffer for the assigned control character.
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50.

How do I print a floating-point number with higher precision say 23.34568734 with only precision up to two decimal places?

Ans: This can be achieved through the use of suppression char '*' in the format string of printf( ) as shown in the following program.
main( )
{
int i = 2 ;
float f = 23.34568734 ;
printf ( "%.*f", i, f ) ;
}
The output of the above program would be 23.35.

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51.
Are the expressions *ptr++ and ++*ptr same?

Ans: No. *ptr++ increments the pointer and not the value pointed by it, whereas ++*ptr increments the value being pointed to by ptr.
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52.
strpbrk( )

The function strpbrk( ) takes two strings as parameters. It scans the first string, to find, the first occurrence of any character appearing in the second string. The function returns a pointer to the first occurrence of the character it found in the first string. The following program demonstrates the use of string function strpbrk( ).

#include <string.h>
main( )
{
char *str1 = "Hello!" ;
char *str2 = "Better" ;
char *p ;
p = strpbrk ( str1, str2 ) ;

if ( p )
printf ( "The first character found in str1 is %c", *p ) ;
else
printf ( "The character not found" ) ;
}
The output of the above program would be the first character found in str1 is e
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53.

Can we convert an unsigned long integer value to a string?

Ans: The function ultoa( ) can be used to convert an unsigned long integer value to a string. This function takes three arguments, first the value that is to be converted, second the base address of the buffer in which the converted number has to be stored (with a string terminating null character '\0') and the last argument specifies the base to be used in converting the value. Following example demonstrates the use of this function.

#include <stdlib.h>
void main( )
{
unsigned long ul = 3234567231L ;
char str[25] ;

ultoa ( ul, str, 10 ) ;
printf ( "str = %s unsigned long = %lu\n", str, ul ) ;
}
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54.
ceil( ) and floor( )

The math function ceil( ) takes a double value as an argument. This function finds the smallest possible integer to which the given number can be rounded up. Similarly, floor( ) being a math function, takes a double value as an argument and returns the largest possible integer to which the given double value can be rounded down. The following program demonstrates the use of both the functions.

#include <math.h>
void main( )
{
double no = 1437.23167 ;
double down, up ;

down = floor ( no ) ;
up = ceil ( no ) ;

printf ( "The original number %7.5lf\n", no ) ;
printf ( "The number rounded down %7.5lf\n", down ) ;
printf ( "The number rounded up %7.5lf\n", up ) ;
}

The output of this program would be,
The original number 1437.23167
The number rounded down 1437.00000
The number rounded up 1438.00000
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55.

How do I use function ecvt( ) in a program?

Ans: The function ecvt( ) converts a floating-point value to a null terminated string. This function takes four arguments, such as, the value to be converted to string, the number of digits to be converted to string, and two integer pointers. The two-integer pointer stores the position of the decimal point (relative to the string) and the sign of the number, respectively. If the value in a variable, used to store sign is 0, then the number is positive and, if it is non-zero, then the number is negative. The function returns a pointer to the string containing digits. Following program demonstrates the use of this function.

#include <stdlib.h>
main( )
{
char *str ;
double val ;
int dec, sign ;
int ndig = 4 ;

val = 22 ;
str = ecvt ( val, ndig, &dec, &sign ) ;
printf ( "string = %s dec = %d sign = %d\n", str, dec, sign ) ;

val = -345.67 ;
ndig = 8 ;
str = ecvt ( val, ndig, &dec, &sign ) ;
printf ( "string = %s dec = %d sign = %d\n", str, dec, sign ) ;

// number with a scientific notation
val = 3.546712e5 ;
ndig = 5 ;
str = ecvt ( val, ndig, &dec, &sign ) ;
printf ( "string = %s dec = %d sign = %d\n", str, dec, sign ) ;
}

The output of this program would be

string = 2200 dec = 2 sign = 0
string = 34567000 dec = 3 sign = 1
string = 35467 dec = 6 sign = 0

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56.
How to run DIR command programmatically?

Ans: We can use the system( ) function to execute the DIR command along with its options. Following program shows how this can be achieved:

// mydir.c

main ( int argc, char *argv[ ] )
{
char str[30] ;

if ( argc < 2 )
exit ( 0 ) ;

sprintf ( str, "dir %s %s", argv[1], argv[2] ) ;
system ( str ) ;
}

If we run the executable file of this program at command prompt passing the command line arguments as follows:

> mydir abc.c /s

This will search the file 'abc.c' in the current directory.
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57.

Suppose I have a structure having fields name, age, salary and have passed address of age to a function fun( ). How I can access the other member of the structure using the address of age?
Ans:
struct emp
{
char name[20] ;
int age ;
float salary ;
} ;
main( )
{
struct emp e ;
printf ( "\nEnter name: " ) ;
scanf ( "%s", e.name ) ;
printf ( "\nEnter age: " ) ;
scanf ( "%d", &e.age ) ;
printf ( "\nEnter salary: " ) ;
scanf ( "%f", &e.salary ) ;
fun ( &e.age ) ;
}
fun ( int *p )
{
struct emp *q ;
int offset ;
offset = ( char * ) ( & ( ( struct emp * ) 0 ) -> age ) - ( char * ) ( (
struct emp* ) 0 ) ;
q = ( struct emp * ) ( ( char * ) p - offset ) ;
printf ( "\nname: %s", q -> name ) ;
printf ( "\nage: %d", q -> age ) ;
printf ( "\nsalary: %f", q -> salary ) ;
}
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58.

How to restrict the program's output to a specific screen region?

Ans: A C function window( ) can be used to restrict the screen output to a specific region. The window( ) function defines a text-mode window. The parameters passed to this function defines the upper-left and lower-right corner of the region within which you want the output. In the following program, the string 'Hello!' gets printed within the specified region. To print the string we must use cprintf( ) function which prints directly on the text-mode window.

#include <conio.h>
main( )
{
int i, j ;

window ( 20, 8, 60, 17 ) ;
for ( i = 0 ; i < 8 ; i++ )
for ( j = 0 ; j < 10 ; j++ )
cprintf ( "Hello!" ) ;
}
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59.

Sometimes you need to prompt the user for a password. When the user types in the password, the characters the user enters should not appear on the screen. A standard library function getpass( ) can be used to perform such function. Maximum number of characters that can be entered as password is 8.

main( )
{
char *pwd ;

pwd = getpass ( "Enter Password" ) ;

if ( strcmp ( pwd, "orgcity" ) )
printf ( "\nPassword %s is incorrect", pwd ) ;
else
printf ( "\nCorrect Password" ) ;
}
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