My philosophy is to treat the input as a string until I can confirm that it’s not. The question then rises as to how strings can best translate into a value.
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Value or String?
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Author Archives: dgookin
Manipulate Pointers in Functions, Part V
In Part II of this series, I showed code that let you pass a pointer’s address to a function. Within that function, the address can be manipulated and value at that address displayed. Can the same thing be done with a two-dimensional array, which is loosely related to a ** pointer?
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The CSV File – Solution
This month’s Exercise, required you to read a CSV file, extract specific information, and output a table. It’s basically a file-reading exercise, though you must also translate the input into the proper value. And you must output the month as a string.
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Manipulate Pointers in Functions, Part IV
Those programmers I wrote about in last week’s Lesson, the ones who avoid the ** pointer notation, usually do so by using a two-dimensional array instead of the ** pointer thing. It’s a quick substitute, but it’s not exactly the same thing.
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The CSV File
Of all the common file formats, the CSV is probably the oldest one still in use. It’s a plain text file, so the formatted data appears is readable by humans: Each line is a record. Each field is separated by a single comma.
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Manipulate Pointers in Functions, Part III
I know C programmers who make it their goal to avoid pointers — even where necessary. It’s possible to do so, and many have cheat sheets to help them. Then comes the ** pointer monster, which can be avoided altogether . . . until you need to manipulate a pointer variable’s own address within a function. Then you’re cursed.
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Manipulate Pointers in Functions, Part II
When a function must manipulate a pointer’s address, the argument passed is a pointer-pointer, not a pointer. Confused? Oh, I’m just getting started . . .
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Manipulate Pointers in Functions, Part I
It’s common to pass a pointer to a function. Within the function, you can manipulate the data the pointer references without having to return that data from the function. This aspect of a pointer is what makes C a powerful — and scary — programming language. But what about when you need to manipulate the pointer’s address in the function?
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Find the Error: Pointers, Structures, and Files – Solution
It took me a while to figure out what was wrong with this month’s Exercise file. It became an obsession! Of course, I was working with a more complex version — the original code. In that code, the information is written several times to the file, and it becomes very obvious that something is wrong. But when the data is written only once, it’s tough to know whether a problem exists.
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Comparing Three Items
Logic can be frustrating, especially for non-Vulcans. The computer is kind of a Vulcan, so logic comes naturally to the machine. Programming languages are packed with logical expressions. A programmer’s duty is to convert human thoughts into the raw, powerful logic the computer understands — and end up with the desired result.
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