[adgjlsfhk]

I am new to programming and I made this code to figure out the shift amount to decode a Caesar cipher. The problem isn't that I am not getting errors, it's that it has so many if statements that it won't run. If anyone could give me help streamlining it at all, it would be greatly appreciated. I'm sorry that this code is so awfully optimized.

#include <stdio.h>

int i=0;
//looping

//frequencies
int count[26]= {0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0};

//most common
int greatest=count[0];

int value=count[1];

int main(void){

char message[]="insert message here";

for(i=0; message[i]!='\0'; i++){

if(message[i]==0x61){
count[0]++;
}else

if(message[i]=='a'){
count[0]++;
}else
if(message[i]=='b'){
count[1]++;
}else
if(message[i]=='c'){
count[2]++;
}else
if(message[i]=='d'){
count[3]++;
}else
if(message[i]=='e'){
count[4]++;
}else
if(message[i]=='f'){
count[5]++;
}else
if(message[i]=='g'){
count[6]++;
}else
if(message[i]=='h'){
count[7]++;
}else
if(message[i]='i'){
count[8]++;
}else
if(message[i]=='j'){
count[9]++;
}else
if(message[i]=='k'){
count[10]++;
}else
if(message[i]=='l'){
count[11]++;
}else
if(message[i]=='m'){
count[12]++;
}else
if(message[i]=='n'){
count[13]++;
}else
if(message[i]=='o'){
count[14]++;
}else
if(message[i]=='p'){
count[15]++;
}else
if(message[i]=='q'){
count[16]++;
}else
if(message[i]=='r'){
count[17]++;
}else
if(message[i]=='s'){
count[18]++;
}else
if(message[i]=='t'){
count[19]++;
}else
if(message[i]=='u'){
count[20]++;
}else
if(message[i]=='v'){
count[21]++;
}else
if(message[i]=='w'){
count[22]++;
}else
if(message[i]=='x'){
count[23]++;
}else
if(message[i]=='y'){
count[24]++;
}else
if(message[i]=='z'){
count[25]++;
}

}

//winner
for(i=0, greatest=0; i<26; i++){
value=count[i]
if (value > greatest){
	            greatest = value;
}
}

printf("shift %i characters", count[valaue]);

return 0;
}

This post has been edited by Skydiver: 08 February 2013 - 08:12 AM
Reason for edit:: Fixed ending code tags.

[Skydiver]

Look at this code:

char ch = 'D';
int index = tolower(ch) - 'a';
printf("%c's index is %d\n", index);

Does that give you any ideas on how to get rid of your long chain of if-else's?

[Adak]

What would 'a' minus 'a' equal?

What about 'b' minus 'a'?


What about charArray[i] - 'a'?

Oh yeah!

[adgjlsfhk]

what does tlower do? I am really new and have never heard of it

[adgjlsfhk]

This still won't run. Is it better at least?

#include <stdio.h>

int i=0;
int b=0;
//looping

//frequencies
int count[26]= {0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0};

//most common
int greatest=count[0];

int value=count[1];

int main(void){

char message[]="insert message here";

for(i=0; message[i]!='\0'; i++){

for(b=0; b!=74; b++){
if(message[i]=96+B)/>{
count[b]++;
b=74
}
}


//winner
for(i=0, greatest=0; i<26; i++){
value=count[i]

[Adak]

It's helpful if you change the uppercase (capital letters) to lowercase, so your frequencies will not be skewed. If you want to use tolower(char), then you use a loop

for(each letter of the message)
message[i]=tolower(message[i]);

and #include <ctype.h> as a header file, to your program.

You can use the same loop above, to count your frequencies. count[message[i]-'a']++ is the key concept. I know it looks "odd" or "twisted", but it's really elegant and efficient. If message[i] is an 'a', then count[0] will be incremented one time.

Pretty clever, eh?

[adgjlsfhk]

that will help. Thanks. Do you know why it doesn't run?

[adgjlsfhk]

why can't you initialize a number to be equal to a variable?

[Ryano121]

What do you mean?

[adgjlsfhk]

it's giving me an error
error: initializer element is not constant

[Adak]

Line 11. You can't create a zero sized array:

int greatest=count[0];

[adgjlsfhk]

http://codepad.org/nPpPRSSs
here's my most recent attempt.

it's giving me this I think error
Output:

1 Timeout

What does that mean?

[Skydiver]

Post your code here, not to some random external site that may or may not be running a virus or a rick-roll.

My guess is that you have an infinite loop if that site is an online compiler and code runner.

[adgjlsfhk]

#include <stdio.h>
#include <ctype.h>

int i=0;
int b=0;
//looping

//frequencies
int count[26]= {0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0};

//most common
int *greatest=&(count[0]);

int *value=&(count[1]);

int main(void){

char message[]="insert message here";

for(i=0; message[i]!='\0'; i++){

message[i]=tolower(message[i]);

for(b=0; b!=74; b++){
if(message[i]=96+B)/>{
count[b]++;
b=74;
}
}


//winner
for(i=0, (*greatest)=0; i<26; i++){
*value=(*count+i);
if ((*value) > (*greatest)){
	            *greatest = *value;
}
}

printf("shift %i characters", count[value]);

return 0;
}

by the way, codepad is a completely legitimate website.

[jimblumberg]

You need to find an indentation style you like and use it consistently. This will make finding this problem much easier.

In future please post the complete error messages, exactly as they appear in your development environment. These messages have important information embedded within them to aid in locating and fixing the errors.

Jim