Program that uses scanf to assign time to each value in array (C)

Question

I'm working on an assignment for storing numbers and names into an array. We have to store 4 numbers to represent time in seconds into each number in the array. This is then totaled and output for each number in an English sentence--in minutes and seconds format.

Here's what I have, which is very minimal and I'm not even sure it does what it's supposed to:

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
    int i = 0; 
    int person[8] = { 0 };

    int leg1;
    int leg2;
    int leg3;
    int leg4;

    while (i < 8) {
        printf("Hello, please enter the number of the person.:\n"); 
        scanf("%d", &person[i]); 
        i = i + 1;
    }

    printf("%d ", i);
    return 0;
}

Ideally instead of numbers I'd like to record a name for each person in the array - a total of 8 names but even the numbers I don't think work.

I'm not sure if its possible to then assign each number in the code 4 values of time using scanf.

The legs are there to store the 4 values of time and then I would sum them up and convert it to seconds and output the time for each value as a whole. I just don't know how to do it for arrays.

edit: not very used to how editing works on this, half of what I wrote is gone but that's fine most of it was all mumbo jumbo anyway. Heres the other bit of code I have that records the time and categorizes the times:

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
    char name[31]; 
    int leg1;
    int leg2; 
    int leg3;
    int leg4;
    int totalTime;

    printf("Hello, please enter the name of the person.:\n");
    scanf("%30s", &name);

    printf("Now please enter the time of the person for the first leg in seconds.:\n");
    scanf("%d", &leg1); 

    printf("Now please enter the time of the person for the second leg in seconds.:\n"); 
    scanf("%d", &leg2); 

    printf("Now please enter the time of the person for the third leg in seconds.:\n");
    scanf("%d", &leg3); 

    printf("Now please enter the time of the person for the final leg in seconds.:\n");
    scanf("%d", &leg4); 

    totalTime = leg1 + leg2 + leg3 + leg4; 

    int minutes = totalTime / 60;
    int seconds = totalTime % 60; 

    if (minutes < 4)
    {
        printf("\t%30s qualified for the International Tournament with a time of %d minutes and %d seconds", name, minutes, seconds);
    }
    else if (minutes >= 4 && minutes < 12)
    {
        printf("\t%30s qualified for the Natonal Race Meeting with a time of %d minutes and %d seconds", name, minutes, seconds);
    }
    else if (minutes >= 12 && minutes < 30)
    {
        printf("\t%30s qualified for the Beginner's League with a time of %d minutes and %d seconds", name, minutes, seconds);
    }
    else if (minutes >= 30)
    {
        printf("\t%30s did not qualify for any league with a really shit time of %d minutes and %d seconds", name, minutes, seconds);
    }

    return 0;

}

Answer 1

Since you are doing this for an assignment, and haven't been introduced to struct yet, you probably want to avoid using it. But it's how you group related information into a record:

struct Racer {
    char name[31]; 
    int leg1;
    int leg2; 
    int leg3;
    int leg4;
};

int main(int argc, char *argv) {
    struct Racer racers[8];
    int i;
    for (i = 0; i < 8; ++i) {
        scanf("%30s", &racers[i].name);
        scanf("%d", &racers[i].leg1);
        /* ... */
    }
    int totalTime = 0;
    for (i = 0; i < 8; ++i) {
        totalTime = totalTime + racers[i].leg1 + /* ... */
        /* ... */
    }
    /* ... */
}

To avoid using structures at this time, you can just go with parallel arrays. See also "Store multiple strings in array"

int main(int argc, char *argv) {
    char names[8][31];
    int legs1[8];
    int legs2[8];
    int legs3[8];
    int legs4[8];
    int i;
    for (i = 0; i < 8; ++i) {
        scanf("%30s", &names[i]);
        scanf("%d", &legs1[i]);
        /* ... */
    }
    int totalTime = 0;
    for (i = 0; i < 8; ++i) {
        totalTime = totalTime + legs1[i] + /* ... */
        /* ... */
    }
    /* ... */
}

(Sidenote: I'll mention that these two approaches aren't equivalent at runtime because they lay out memory differently. There are reasons why you might choose the separate arrays in some cases...if you're going to be iterating through the arrays individually, it's better to have the data tightly together instead of split out as elements across multiple records.)