A handy tool for slicing up a string of text into chunks is the strtok() function. If you understand the strtok() function, it helps you better understand how more complex parsing functions work.
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Last week’s Lesson discussed the errno variable and how it can display more detailed error messages. I have two updates to that Lesson.
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One of the C language’s universal variables is errno. It contains a code describing details about why a particular operation failed. You can use errno in your code to provide better, more informative error messages for your programs.
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Error messages have a notorious reputation in the computer kingdom. It’s well-deserved, but as a programmer you can better see how error messages evolved. Like documentation, i.e., the wretched manual (which is gone now), error messages are typically an afterthought in the software development cycle. It doesn’t have to be that way.
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I received an email question recently about the power of the break keyword. The answer to the question is that you can only break out of the current loop or switch-case structure. Even in a nested loop, or a switch-case structure within a loop, break affects only the current element.
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The standard C library contains a clutch of functions you use all the time, such as printf(), getchar(), malloc(), time(), rand(), and others. If you look in the library, you may discover some oddball functions that you’ve never used. One of those oddball functions might be ungetc().
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In last week’s Lesson, I demonstrated the strdup() function. That function isn’t available in every C language library, but it’s easy to craft your own.
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The C library function to copy a string is strcpy(), which (I’m guessing) stands for string copy.
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This month’s Exercise involves coding the lyrics for a cumulative song. Perhaps the most famous, and certainly the most obnoxious, cumulative song is the old warhorse, 99 Bottles of Beer.
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The old computer processing adage is “garbage in, garbage out.” What it means is that unless your data is good, don’t expect to see good results. So what can be done to ensure that the data is good? A checksum, that’s what.
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