The following C code when ran is skipping the storage of some information

Question

Something is wrong with the functionality of the code. As in the screenshot below it'skipping storing some information for the employees. Hence it makes it incomplete. I can't fathom what's the underlining issue. This is a screenshot of how it displays: enter image description here

Only the name, sex and address are been stored. Sometimes it randomly stores all information. A look at the code:

        printf("\nEnter designation of the employee: ");
        scanf("%s", e.dsgn);
        printf("\nEnter age of the employee: ");
        scanf("%d", &e.age);
        printf("\nEnter basic salary of the employee: ");
        scanf("%f", &e.slry);
        printf("\nEnter the employee's ID: ");
        scanf("%d", &e.empID);
        fputs(e.name, fptr);
        fputs(&e.sex, fptr);
        fputs(e.adrs, fptr);
        fputs(e.dsgn, fptr);
        fprintf(fptr, "%d \n%f \n%d \n", e.age, e.slry, e.empID);

The struct:

struct employee
{
        char name[50];
        char sex{7};
        char adrs[50];
        char dsgn[25];
        int age,empID;
        float slry;
        tolower()
};

Entire code:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <conio.h>
#include <ctype.h>
#include <stdbool.h>
#include <windows.h>
#include "struct.h"

void insert();
void list();
void edit();
void del();
void exit();

FILE * fptr, *ftemp;
struct employee e;
long int recsize;
char empname[50];

int main()
{
    int choice;
    fptr = fopen("ems.txt", "r+");


    if (fptr == NULL)
    {
        printf("Can't find file! Attempting to create file... \n");

        fptr = fopen("ems.txt","w+");
        if(fptr == NULL)
        {
            printf("Can't create file. Exiting...");
         exit(1);
        }
    }

    //Explain the reason for this?
    //recsize = (long int) sizeof(e);//


    while(1)
    {
        printf("*******************************\n");
        printf("\nEmployee management system");
        printf("\n1. Insert employee information");
        printf("\n2. List all employee information");
        printf("\n3. Edit employee information");
        printf("\n4. Delete employee information");
        printf("\n5. Exit");
        printf("\n\n*****************************\n");
        printf("\n\n Enter your choice: ");
        scanf("%d", &choice);
        fflush(stdin);

        switch(choice)
        {
            case 1:
                puts("Insert was chosen");
                insert();

                break;
            case 2:
                puts("List was chosen");
                list();
                break;
            case 3:
                puts("Edit was chosen");
                edit();
                break;
            case 4:
                puts("Delete was chosen");
                del();
                break;
            case 5:
                puts("Exit was chosen");
                exit(1);
                break;
            default:
                puts("Choice is incorrect!!");
                break;
        }
    }

    return 0;
}


void insert()
{
    char next;

    do
    {
        printf("********************************************************** \n");
        printf("\nEnter the name of the employee: ");
        fgets(e.name, sizeof(e.name), stdin);
        printf("\nEnter the sex of the employee (M/m or F/f): ");
        scanf("%c",&e.sex);

        switch(e.sex)
        {
            case 'M':
            case 'm':
                printf("\nMale.\n");
                break;
            case 'F':
            case 'f':
                printf("\nFemale.\n  ");
                break;
            default:
                printf("Unspecified Sex.");
        }
        printf("\nEnter the address of the employee: ");
        scanf( "%s", e.adrs);
        printf("\nEnter designation of the employee: ");
        scanf("%s", e.dsgn);
        printf("\nEnter age of the employee: ");
        scanf("%d", &e.age);
        printf("\nEnter basic salary of the employee: ");
        scanf("%f", &e.slry);
        printf("\nEnter the employee's ID: ");
        scanf("%d", &e.empID);
        fputs(e.name, fptr);
        fputs(&e.sex, fptr);
        fputs(e.adrs, fptr);
        fputs(e.dsgn, fptr);
        fprintf(fptr, "%d \n%f \n%d \n", e.age, e.slry, e.empID);
       // fwrite(&e,recsize,1,fptr);
        int ch;  while( ( ch = getchar() ) != EOF && ch != '\n' ){;}
        //fflush(stdin);//
        printf("\nDo you want to input more? (y/n): ");
        next = getche();
        printf("\n");
    }
    while( tolower(next) != 'n' );

    fclose(fptr);
}

void list ()
{
     printf("-------------------------------");
     printf("\nEmployee Details: \n---------------------------------\n");
     printf("Name        : %s\n",e.name);
     printf("Address     : %s\n",e.adrs);
     printf("Sex         : %c\n",e.sex);
     printf("Designation : %s\n",e.dsgn);
     printf("Age         : %d\n",e.age);
     printf("Salary      : %.2f\n",e.slry);
     printf("Employee-ID : %d\n",e.empID);
}

void edit ()
{
    char next;
    do
    {
        printf("Enter the employee name to be edited: ");
        scanf("%49[^\n]", empname);
        while(fread(&e,recsize,1,fptr)==1)
        {
            if(strcmp(e.name,empname) == 0)
            {
                printf("\nEnter new name,sex,address,designation,age,salary,employee ID ");
                scanf("%s %c %s %s %d %f %d",e.name,&e.sex,e.adrs,e.dsgn,&e.age,&e.slry,&e.empID);
                fseek(fptr,-recsize,SEEK_CUR);
                fwrite(&e,recsize,1,fptr);
                break;
            }
        }
        printf("\nEdit another record(y/n)");
        next = getche();
        int ch;  while( ( ch = getchar() ) != EOF && ch != '\n' ){;}

    }
    while(next != 'n');


    return ;
}

void del()
{
    char next;
    do
    {
        printf("\nEnter name of employee to delete: ");
        scanf("%s",empname);
        ftemp = fopen("Temp.dat","wb");
        while(fread(&e,recsize,1,fptr) == 1)
        {
            if(strcmp(e.name,empname) != 0)
            {
                fwrite(&e,recsize,1,ftemp);
            }
        }

        fclose(fptr);
        fclose(ftemp);
        remove("ems.txt");
        rename("Temp.dat","ems.txt");
        fptr = fopen("ems.txt", "rb+");
        printf("Delete another record(y/n)");
        int ch;  while( ( ch = getchar() ) != EOF && ch != '\n' ){;}
        next = getche();


    }while( tolower(next) != 'n' );
}

Are you sure you're compiling this as C? you have a function inside the struct declaration. — Sourav Ghosh, Jun 29 '20 at 05:02
Welcome to Stack Overflow! [`fflush(stdin);` is undefined behaviour, don't do it.](https://stackoverflow.com/a/38325926/2173917) — Sourav Ghosh, Jun 29 '20 at 05:03
Finally, also not a good choice to mix `fgets()` and `scanf()`. — Sourav Ghosh, Jun 29 '20 at 05:04
skipping on some info? maybe because Keybardbuffer is not flushed... — , Jun 29 '20 at 05:10
I used a fflush (stdin); equivalent: int ch; while( ( ch = getchar() ) != EOF && ch != '\n' ){;} — DD ArtCustom, Jun 29 '20 at 05:19
`%s` format specifier in `scanf` only reads a single whitespace-separated string. I think you want to read the entire line, which is why you should use `fgets`. See [this example](https://ideone.com/8AP9Bp) where `scanf` only reads "23" out of the input "23 Pineapple Street". — paddy, Jun 29 '20 at 05:21
You really should compile your C code with an up-to-date C compiler, like GCC with MingW64 for Windows. Your code throws a bunch of warnings. — RobertS supports Monica Cellio, Jun 29 '20 at 07:12

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 29 '20 at 05:29

The scanf("%s", ...) will just take the string value till the next whitespace, rest are truncated. To avoid that, better use fgets(var, sizeof(var), stdin).

printf("\nEnter the address of the employee: ");
scanf( "%s", e.adrs); // this
printf("\nEnter designation of the employee: ");
scanf("%s", e.dsgn); // this

To:

printf("\nEnter the address of the employee: ");
fseek(stdin, 0, SEEK_END); // ADD THIS TO AVOID SKIP
fgets(e.adrs, sizeof(e.adrs), stdin); // this
printf("\nEnter designation of the employee: ");
fgets(e.dsgn, sizeof(e.dsgn), stdin); // this

Notice that I've mentioned to add a line:

fseek(stdin, 0, SEEK_END);

This will prevent the the skip problem and is better than fflush(stdin) which tends to Undefined Behavior (UB).

Then you will get the correct output format:

Enter the name of the employee: ABC Someone

Enter the sex of the employee (M/m or F/f): m

Male.

Enter the address of the employee: Address 123

Enter designation of the employee: Manager

Enter age of the employee: 120

Enter basic salary of the employee: -10

Enter the employee's ID: 007

Do you want to input more? (y/n): n

An important note: The fseek() will not work on terminals. On a Unix system, if standard input is a terminal, the terminal is not a seek-able device, so the proposed fseek() would do nothing. If the input device was a file, it would, of course, seek to the end of the file.

The following C code when ran is skipping the storage of some information

1 Answers1