{"id":6704,"date":"2024-12-14T00:01:09","date_gmt":"2024-12-14T08:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/c-for-dummies.com\/blog\/?p=6704"},"modified":"2024-12-21T08:32:56","modified_gmt":"2024-12-21T16:32:56","slug":"the-pig-latin-translator-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/c-for-dummies.com\/blog\/?p=6704","title":{"rendered":"The Pig Latin Translator, Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of my older C programming books featured a sample program that translated English words into their Pig Latin equivalent. It’s time to revisit this code.
\n
\nThe program I wrote back in 2004, published in the C All-in-One Desktop Reference For Dummies<\/em> (Wiley)(over 800 pages long!), is a filter. It’s a good, fun example for working a filter, but the code is long and I believe I could write it better 20 years later.<\/p>\n

First, what is Pig Latin?<\/p>\n

It’s English, but with the first part of the word flopped to the end. Either -ay<\/em> or -hay<\/em> is added, which makes it sound like Ecclesiastical Latin. (Think of a Roman Catholic priest speaking in an echoey church.) So, Hello<\/em> becomes ello-Hay<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Second, the language has no rules. It’s a play on words — and an old one. Shakespeare’s play Love’s Labour’s Lost<\/em> includes this snippet, called Dog Latin in the day: O, I smell false Latine; dunghill for unguem.<\/em> Dog Latin evolved into Hog Latin and then to Pig Latin. I suppose the only “rule” is that it sounds like Latin. (Though it doesn’t, really.)<\/p>\n

Third, to code it I’m writing a piglatin()<\/em> function. The first step is to swallow the word and send it off to the function. I wrote the following skeleton to fetch a text from standard input, lop off the newline, then send the word (the text) to the piglatin()<\/em> function and return it unmodified:<\/p>\n

2024_12_14-Lesson-a.c<\/a><\/h3>\n
\r\n#include <stdio.h>\r\n\r\n\/* translate a word into piglatin *\/<\/span>\r\nchar *piglatin(char *s)\r\n{\r\n    \/* word starts with a vowel, add -hay *\/<\/span>\r\n    \/* move first consonant\/consonant cluster\r\n       add -ay *\/<\/span>\r\n    return s;\r\n}\r\n\r\nint main()\r\n{\r\n    char word[32];\r\n    char *s,*pl;\r\n\r\n    printf(\"Original word: \");\r\n    fgets(word,32,stdin);\r\n    \/* remove newline *\/<\/span>\r\n    s = word;\r\n    while(*s++)\r\n        if( *s=='\\n') *s='\\0';\r\n\r\n    \/* translate to pig latin *\/<\/span>\r\n    pl = piglatin(word);\r\n\r\n    printf(\"Translated word: %s\\n\",pl);\r\n\r\n    return 0;\r\n}<\/pre>\n
The bulk of the main()<\/em> function removes the newline automatically added by the fgets()<\/em> function. The input text is then sent to the piglatin()<\/em> function, which returns the word for output. Here’s a sample run:<\/p>\n
Original word: hello
\nTranslated word: hello<\/code><\/p>\n
The code contains a comment in the piglatin()<\/em> function that describes the pending operation: When the word starts with a vowel, affix the -hay<\/code> ending. Otherwise, move the first consonant or consonant cluster to the end of the word and add -ay<\/code>. Variations on these techniques differ. For example, some Pig Latin translations use yay<\/em> instead of hay<\/em>. Some omit the hyphens.<\/p>\n
Rather than tackle the entire problem at once, my next update works only on those words that start with a vowel. To accomplish this task, I added a switch-case<\/em> structure to the piglatin()<\/em> function. For those words starting with a vowel, a new string is allocated with storage for the -hay<\/code> suffix. Then the new, Pig Latin word is built:<\/p>\n
2024_12_14-Lesson-b.c<\/a><\/h3>\n
\r\n#include <stdio.h>\r\n#include <stdlib.h>\r\n#include <string.h>\r\n\r\n\/* translate a word into piglatin *\/<\/span>\r\nchar *piglatin(char *s)\r\n{\r\n    char *pig;\r\n\r\n    \/* word starts with a vowel, add -hay *\/<\/span>\r\n    switch(*s)\r\n    {\r\n        case 'a':\r\n        case 'e':\r\n        case 'i':\r\n        case 'o':\r\n        case 'u':\r\n            pig = malloc( strlen(s)+4+1 );    \/* \"-hay\" + '\\0' *\/<\/span>\r\n            if( pig==NULL )\r\n                return(\"Memory Error\");\r\n            strcpy(pig,s);\r\n            strcat(pig,\"-hay\");\r\n            break;\r\n    \/* move first consonant\/consonant cluster\r\n       add -ay *\/<\/span>\r\n        default:\r\n            pig = s;    \/* temp assignment *\/<\/span>\r\n    }\r\n    return pig;\r\n}\r\n\r\nint main()\r\n{\r\n    char word[32];\r\n    char *s,*pl;\r\n\r\n    printf(\"Original word: \");\r\n    fgets(word,32,stdin);\r\n    \/* remove newline *\/<\/span>\r\n    s = word;\r\n    while(*s++)\r\n        if( *s=='\\n') *s='\\0';\r\n\r\n    \/* translate to pig latin *\/<\/span>\r\n    pl = piglatin(word);\r\n\r\n    printf(\"Translated word: %s\\n\",pl);\r\n\r\n    return 0;\r\n}<\/pre>\n
In the piglatin()<\/em> function, when the word starts with a vowel, pointer *pig<\/code> is allocated enough storage for the original word plus 4 for -hay<\/code> and one for the null character. The original string is copied to pig<\/code>, then -hay<\/code> is concatenated. The word is returned. For all other words, the original word is returned.<\/p>\n
Here are some sample runs:<\/p>\n
Original word: outside
\nTranslated word: outside-hay<\/p>\n
Original word: nothing
\nTranslated word: nothing<\/code><\/p>\n
In next week’s Lesson<\/a>, I continue to build the Pig Latin translator by improving upon this code.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
anslateTr-ay ordsw-ay into-hay igP-ay atinL-ay Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c-for-dummies.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c-for-dummies.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c-for-dummies.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c-for-dummies.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c-for-dummies.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6704"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/c-for-dummies.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6773,"href":"https:\/\/c-for-dummies.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6704\/revisions\/6773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c-for-dummies.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c-for-dummies.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c-for-dummies.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}