[trendygirl]

Hello, been all over DIC site to find help & I did find some... I am trying to write function that determines wheter a given # is a perfect square, teacher provided

bool IsSquare (int);

so I am trying to use it & the

mySquareRoot

that I found here, but I am doing something wrong. See error below...Suggestions??
You all are a great help! Thank you!

#include<iostream>
#include<cmath>
#include<string>

using namespace std;

//****function prototypes****************************************************
//1st -- this section describes the type/format of the functions

//return type: bool
//parameters: double
//purpose:  this function determines whether a given number is a perfect square.

	bool IsSquare (double num);

//2nd -- this section calls the function needed

int main()
{

//declare variables
	double num; 
	double IsSquare; 
	double float mySquareRoot;

//call IsSquare function =  bool IsSquare(double num);
//prompt for number

 do 
   {  
         cout<<"Enter number to determine if it is a perfect square: \n";  
         cin>>num;  

			if (num >= 1) 
			{  
         	mySquareRoot = sqrt(num);  
         	cout<< "The square root is " <<mySquareRoot<<endl;  
			}
    }while (num >= 1);  

	return 0;
}

//function declarations
//3rd --  this section performs the action

//return type: bool
//parameters:  double
//purpose:  this function determines whether a given number is a perfect square.

	bool IsSquare (double num) 
{    
	return mySquareRoot = sqrt(num);
}

Errors:

square.cpp: In function ‘bool IsSquare(double)’:
square.cpp:62: error: ‘mySquareRoot’ was not declared in this scope

[GunnerInc]

The C/C++ Challenge section is not for code help. I will move it somewhere... Oh yeah, to C/C++ :-)

[trendygirl]

thank you, Hall Monitor! Sorry for duplicate entry, browser was acting up!

[zainsiddiqui14]

The aim of the program is a little unclear. Does it aim to calculate the square root of a number, or does it exclusively aim to determine whether a number is a perfect square? Or does it want to do both? Your variable IsSquare's name implies that the variable should be assigned a true or false value, yet it's type is a double. Your function IsSquare implies it should return true or false, yet it returns a double. So I think the first step is to clarify and sort out what you want the program to do.

[totgeburt]

just glancing over it quicky, your IsSquare is supposed to return a bool, but you have it returning a double. you should assign that equation to a bool variable and have it return the bool
^heh.. like zain said. and i'm pretty sure he just wants to determine if a number is a perfect square

This post has been edited by totgeburt: 10 July 2012 - 11:58 PM

[Huskerfan]

Also, as far as your second error...

MySquareRoot is only available in the scope of main. To access it in your function you would either need to pass it in as a parameter to the function, or (less favorable) declare it as a global variable outside of main

[zainsiddiqui14]

Okay, so my first post was a little too rhetorical : P Anyway, I think the general agreement among us is that IsSquare needs to return a bool, a type that returns a 'true' or 'false'. So the function needs to take in a number and see if it's a "perfect square" (a number that yields a positive integer when the square root of that number is calculated ), and then return a "yes" (true) or "no" (false) based on the evaluation. At the moment, two solutions, for me anyway, come to mind. One way to see if it's a perfect square is by typecasting, but I think a logically simpler way to do it is by using a loop that checks perfect squares up until the number you entered.

[zainsiddiqui14]

So really, you can take out the variable "MySquareRoot" and just use two variables in main(): a bool "isSquare" and a double "num". And I think a more appropriate output for the result when you display it main() would be something like:

pseudo code
if is square
display num + "is a square"
else 
display num+"is not a prefect square"

Of course this is assuming that all user inputs are actually valid.

This post has been edited by zainsiddiqui14: 11 July 2012 - 01:18 AM

[trendygirl]

Hey there **ZAIN**

I got rid of lines 34-38 above & I put the above code in. Is that where it should go? I did also get rid of

mysquareroot

, no validation is necessary...Thank you!!

bool IsSquare (double num);

//***main********************************************************************
//2nd -- this section calls the function needed

int main()
{

//declare variables
	double num; 
	double IsSquare; 
	
//call IsSquare function =  bool IsSquare(double num);
//prompt for number

 do 
   {  
         cout<<"Enter number to determine if it is a perfect square: \n";  
         cin>>num;  
			{
			if (is square)
			  
			display num + "is a square" 

			else  

			display num +"is not a prefect square" 

			}
    }while (num >= 1);  

	return 0;
}

//function declarations
//3rd --  this section performs the action

//return type: bool
//parameters:  double
//purpose:  this function determines whether a given number is a perfect square.

	bool IsSquare (double num) 
{    
	return  bool IsSquare (double num);
}

square.cpp: In function ‘int main()’:
square.cpp:40: error: ‘is’ was not declared in this scope
square.cpp:40: error: expected `)' before ‘square’
square.cpp:42: error: ‘display’ was not declared in this scope
square.cpp:42: error: expected `;' before ‘num’
square.cpp: In function ‘bool IsSquare(double)’:
square.cpp:65: error: expected primary-expression before ‘bool’
square.cpp:65: error: expected ‘;’ before ‘bool’

[Skydiver]

Zain told you specifically that he was showing you pseudo code. It's your job to translate that pseudo code into real code.

[jared.deckard]

You are getting there.

Try this: http://ideone.com/Q4Dv0

// You need this for cin and cout
#include <iostream>
 
// You need this for sqrt
#include <cmath>
 
// You need this for lots of stuff
using namespace std;
 
// Returns true if number is a perfect square
bool IsSquare (int num) 
{
        // Calculate the square root of num
        // Casting to an int truncates any decimal parts
        int sqrt_num = sqrt(num);
        
        // If the previous line didn't truncate and digits
        // then the number must be a perfect square.
        // If the square root squared equals the original
        // number it is a perfect square!
        return sqrt_num*sqrt_num == num;
}
 
int main()
{
        // Perfect squares only work on integers
        int num;
        
        // Loop while num
        while(true){
                // Ask for number
                cout << "Enter number to determine if it is a perfect square: \n";
                cin >> num;
                
                // Stop if number is less than 1
                if(num < 1) break;
                
                // Number was a square
                if (IsSquare(num)) cout << num << " is a square\n";
                
                // Number wasn't a square
                else cout << num << " is not a prefect square\n";
        }  
 
        return 0;
}

[zainsiddiqui14]

^What Skydiver said. Also, your new function IsSquare seems like an infinite recursion.

[zainsiddiqui14]

Also, a very clever solution from Jared! I had typecasting in mind, but what he has is a slightly more efficient version of the same idea. But are you supposed to give solutions like that outright? Here's another algorithm that doesn't typecast:

for (int i = 0; i*i <= num; ++i){
if (i*i==num)
return true;
}
return false;

This post has been edited by zainsiddiqui14: 11 July 2012 - 05:18 PM

[trendygirl]

yes, it is in a loop...not ending....idk what typecasting is yet, so i don't want to use anything that Prof. hasnt taught yet....thank you, let me apply this within my "function" program & see how it goes!

[zainsiddiqui14]

I edited my comment to include another way to solve it without truncating decimals or typecasting (typecasting is just converting a type to another type). It checks all of the perfect squares up until the number you entered and sees if any of the squares match your number.