K&R Exercise 1-9 (C)

Question

\"Write a program to copy its input to its output, replacing each string of one or more blanks by a single blank.\"

I\'m assuming by thi

Answer 1

Here is how I think of the algorithm of this exercise, in pseudo-code:

define ch and bl (where bl is initially defined to be 0)

while ch is = to getchar() which is not = to end of file  
do the following:  
      if ch is = to blank and bl is = 0  
          --> output ch and assign the value 1 to bl  
      else --> if ch is = to blank and bl is = 1  
          --> do nothing  
      else --> output ch and assign the value 0 to bl

Example implementation in C:

#include 
#include 

main() {

   long ch,bl=0;

   while ((ch=getchar()) != EOF)
   {
       if (ch == ' ' && bl == 0)
       {
           putchar(ch);
           bl=1;
       } else if (ch == ' ' && bl == 1) {
           // no-op
       } else {
           putchar(ch);
           bl=0;
       }
   }

   return 0;
}