Being the ancient and venerable programming language it is, C lacks the associative array data type. This type of array is found in other languages, and it can be awkwardly simulated in C.
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I enjoy studying foreign languages. A tool like Google Translate comes in handy, but it’s not perfect. That’s because computers translate words and phrases, but not the living, spoken language. Regardless, I thought I’d give language translation a stab, which got me into the topic of exploring arrays.
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Last week’s Lesson explored using the clock_gettime() function to pause program execution for a given number of nanoseconds. The code, however, contains a flaw that may render an inaccurate result.
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I’ve written about my own delay() function, which uses processor clock ticks to calculate a time delay in milliseconds. Thanks to the clock_gettime() function, I can write a new time-delay function that operates from nanoseconds — or close to it. I hope.
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From last week’s Lesson, the clock_gettime() function returns values in both time_t (Unix Epoch) seconds as well as nanoseconds. This rich variety makes the function quite useful for coding time-critical details where values less than a second are desired.
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I tend to keep the lessons on this blog specific to the standard C library, C99 release. Yet every so often a newer function draws my attention, which may not be standard but can still be useful. Case in point is the clock_gettime() function, which subscriber M.Stumpfl mentioned in a previous post.
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I just moved to a new computer. The process involved taking all my personal programs and re-compiling them for the new system. It took a while, but fortunately everything works with my various programs doing their necessary jobs. That is, unless I see a weirdo error upon compiling one of those golden oldies. On such error I saw made me wonder what they heck I was doing in my code.
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The final update to the sconvert function includes translating characters &, <, and > for proper HTML output. With this update to the code from last week’s Lesson, the conversion filter is complete and can be used to translate C program text output into HTML code that I can easily post on the web.
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The task for last week’s Lesson was to convert tabs as well as spaces. The problem is that tab stops aren’t considered: On the terminal, a tab character generates a variable number of spaces based on where the next tab stop position is located. It isn’t a fixed value.
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As you can tell by the post title, part of the sconvert program I missed is to convert tab characters into HTML spaces. Like spaces, tabs output blanks that must be converted to the   code for proper output on a web page.
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