Debugging Your Code: Fixing an Array of Structures in C

Learn how to correctly use an array of structures in C to store and retrieve data accurately. Avoid common mistakes that lead to unexpected behavior in your programs. --- This video is based on the question https://stackoverflow.com/q/62363018/ asked by the user 'Lucca' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/13100887/ ) and on the answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/62363286/ provided by the user 'Pakito Gama' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/10581510/ ) at 'Stack Overflow' website. Thanks to these great users and Stackexchange community for their contributions. Visit these links for original content and any more details, such as alternate solutions, latest updates/developments on topic, comments, revision history etc. For example, the original title of the Question was: Array of structures not storing data as expected Also, Content (except music) licensed under CC BY-SA https://meta.stackexchange.com/help/l... The original Question post is licensed under the 'CC BY-SA 4.0' ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... ) license, and the original Answer post is licensed under the 'CC BY-SA 4.0' ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... ) license. If anything seems off to you, please feel free to write me at vlogize [AT] gmail [DOT] com. --- Debugging Your Code: Fixing an Array of Structures in C When working with arrays of structures in C, you may encounter unexpected behavior that leaves you puzzled. For example, you might have written a program that is supposed to read input data about multiple people but instead of getting accurate information, you see strange or random values. This issue often arises from small mistakes in your code. Let’s explore a common scenario and how to resolve it. The Problem Imagine you’ve written code to create an array of structures to hold the details of people, including their names and ages. Despite running the program and providing the expected inputs, you receive incorrect results. Here's a brief overview of the code that leads to this confusion: [[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]] When you test with an input of 1 for the number of people and provide the name Lucia and age 60, you expect the output to be Name: Lucia - Age: 60. However, instead, you get garbage values like Name: rI - Age: 32766. What went wrong? Identifying the Mistake The culprit behind this issue lies in how variables are handled inside your loops. Specifically, you mistakenly referenced the loop's upper limit variable n when accessing array elements, instead of using the iterator i. In your scanning segment of the loop, you have: [[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]] Since n is the total number of people, but you're supposed to be reading the input for the i-th person in the list, you need to replace n with i. The Solution To resolve this, simply change your scanning loop to use the iterator i instead of n: [[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]] This adjustment ensures that you are storing the information in the correct elements of the array. Final Code Here is the corrected version of your program: [[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]] Conclusion Mistakes like using the wrong index in loops are common, but they can lead to confusion when you are debugging code. By carefully checking your loop variables and indexing, you can avoid most simple errors. With the updated code provided, your program will now accurately read and print the names and ages of the people as expected. Happy coding!