[bluebear1608]

Im writing a program that allows the user to search a phrase, but for some reason, it seems to be stuck in an infinite loop.
i need to loop through each song and compare it with the other song, if its the same, then i need to check if the word positions are one appart.

Theres probably some logic errors in there, but i just cant work out what it is. please help me out

int wordQuery(Position result,Position result2)
{
  struct Song *song,*song2;
	struct WordPosition *position, *position2;
  if (result != NULL && result2 !=NULL) 
		{
		  song = result->firstSong;
		  song2 = result2->firstSong;
		  
		  fprintf(stderr,"Song\n");
		  fprintf(stderr,"----\n");
		  while (song != NULL) 
		  {
			
			while (song2 != NULL) 
			{
			  if(song2->Number == song->Number)
			  {
				position = song->firstPosition;
				while(position != NULL)
				{
				  position2 = song2->firstPosition;
				  while(position2!=NULL)
				  {
					if((position->Number+1)==position2->Number);
					{
					  printf("Song Number: %d Position: %d\n",song->Number,position->Number);
					  break;
					}
					
					position2=position2->nextPosition;
				  }
				  position=position->nextPosition;
				}
			  }
			  else
				song2=song2->nextSong;
			}
			song = song->nextSong;
			song2 = result2->firstSong;
		  }
		  fprintf(stderr,"\n");
		}
		return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

[no2pencil]

Wow. That is a LOT of while loops to be nesting.

The way that I would handle this, is to put a printf statement in each while loop, & output to a text file for logging. This way you can at least see where it's getting hung up. Also print out any variables, so you can visually verify what you think is going on, compared to what is actually going on.

[bluebear1608]

I have tried putting printf statements in, at the momment, all im getting is this:

Song Number: 9 Position: 150
Song Number: 9 Position: 152
Song Number: 9 Position: 154
Song Number: 9 Position: 213
Song Number: 9 Position: 215
Song Number: 9 Position: 217

over and over and over and over again. its the right answer btw, but showing once is enough i think. =]

[no2pencil]

If it's correct, then I don't understand how it's stuck in a loop.

[bluebear1608]

Maybe im missing a break here or there, just dont know where.
Its definitely the correct answer though

[mclang]

To me it seems that the outermost while does not terminate ever.

Reason has to be that "song" is always something else than NULL. So the line:

song = song->nextSong;

is not working as it is supposed to... Are you sure the linked list's last "nextSong" does NOT point back to the first song, in other words is song linked list a circular one?

[bluebear1608]

I dont think thats the case because i have other functions that uses it and they're working fine. Im really scratching my head over this one

[mclang]

Then add more printing so that you can see how the while loops are progressing. For example before "return EXIT_SUCCESS;" is a good place to see if function terminates properly.

Same thing with "fprintf(stderr,"\n");" - does it execute properly? If not, it has to be some problem with "while (song != NULL)" -loop... Is it possible that you call "wordQuery(...)" -function over and over again?

edit: spelling mistakes

This post has been edited by mclang: 09 October 2009 - 04:04 AM

[bluebear1608]

ok, fixed it, i had an else statement in there when it should be there. no more infinitely loop problem, but now its causing a segmentation fault when i call the function a second time (first time it runs fine). i thought it was a problem with the buffer and used a funtion to clear buffer, but it still does it. any ideas?

This post has been edited by bluebear1608: 09 October 2009 - 04:35 AM