This is a K&R exercise (1-13)...
"Write a program to print a histogram
of the length of words in its input.
It is easy to draw the histogram with
bars horizontal; a vertical
orientation is more challenging."
----------------------------------------------------------------
001|XX
002|XXXX
003|X
004|XXXXXXXXXX
005|XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
006|XXXX
007|X
008|
009|XXXXXXXXX
010|XXX
>10|XXXX
----------------------------------------------------------------
- PRINT TOP BORDER
- PRINT CATEGORY, PRINT X EACH TIME CONDITION IS TRUE, PRINT NEWLINE,
REPEAT.
- PRINT BOTTOM BORDER
getchar()
#include <stdio.h>
#define MAXWORDLENGTH 10
// print a histogram of the length of words in input. horizontal bar version
int main(void)
{
int c;
while ((c = getchar()) != EOF) {
}
return 0;
}
I loved the pseudo-code! Some good thinking there, but you're still not ordering your program right.
As you said yourself, you can't read the text, go back and print an X in a particular row. If we establish that it can't be done, then there's no choice but to know all the values of the histogram beforehand.
So you should think your program as having two parts (and you'll make this kind of division in practically every program you write): first, a part that will make calculations; and then a part that will output them in a certain format (the histogram).
This tip should get you started! If you need further help, comment below.