C Program to Count Number of Digits in an Integer In this example, you will learn to count the number of digits in an integer entered by the user. To understand this example, you should have the knowledge of the following C programming topics.
A function is a block of statements that performs a specific task. Suppose you are building an application in C language and in one of your program, you need to perform a same task more than once. In such case you have two options –
a) Use the same set of statements every time you want to perform the task
b) Create a function to perform that task, and just call it every time you need to perform that task.
Using option (b) is a good practice and a good programmer always uses functions while writing codes in C.
Types of functions
1) Predefined standard library functions – such as puts(), gets(), printf(), scanf() etc – These are the functions which already have a definition in header files (.h files like stdio.h), so we just call them whenever there is a need to use them.
2) User Defined functions – The functions that we create in a program are known as user defined functions.
In this guide, we will learn how to create user defined functions and how to use them in C Programming
Why we need functions in C
Functions are used because of following reasons –
a) To improve the readability of code.
b) Improves the reusability of the code, same function can be used in any program rather than writing the same code from scratch.
c) Debugging of the code would be easier if you use functions, as errors are easy to be traced.
d) Reduces the size of the code, duplicate set of statements are replaced by function calls.
Syntax of a function
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return_type: Return type can be of any data type such as int, double, char, void, short etc. Don’t worry you will understand these terms better once you go through the examples below.
function_name: It can be anything, however it is advised to have a meaningful name for the functions so that it would be easy to understand the purpose of function just by seeing it’s name.
argument list: Argument list contains variables names along with their data types. These arguments are kind of inputs for the function. For example – A function which is used to add two integer variables, will be having two integer argument.
Block of code: Set of C statements, which will be executed whenever a call will be made to the function.
Do you find above terms confusing? – Do not worry I’m not gonna end this guide until you learn all of them :)
Lets take an example – Suppose you want to create a function to add two integer variables.
Let’s split the problem so that it would be easy to understand –
Function will add the two numbers so it should have some meaningful name like sum, addition, etc. For example lets take the name addition for this function.
This function addition adds two integer variables, which means I need two integer variable as input, lets provide two integer parameters in the function signature. The function signature would be –
The result of the sum of two integers would be integer only. Hence function should return an integer value – I got my return type – It would be integer –
So you got your function prototype or signature. Now you can implement the logic in C program like this:
How to call a function in C?
Consider the following C program
Example1: Creating a user defined function addition()
Output:
Example2: Creating a void user defined function that doesn’t return anything
Output:
Few Points to Note regarding functions in C:
1) main() in C program is also a function.
2) Each C program must have at least one function, which is main().
3) There is no limit on number of functions; A C program can have any number of functions.
4) A function can call itself and it is known as “Recursion“. I have written a separate guide for it.
C Functions Terminologies that you must remember
return type: Data type of returned value. It can be void also, in such case function doesn’t return any value.
Note: for example, if function return type is char, then function should return a value of char type and while calling this function the main() function should have a variable of char data type to store the returned value.
Structure would look like –
More Topics on Functions in C
1) Function – Call by value method– In the call by value method the actual arguments are copied to the formal arguments, hence any operation performed by function on arguments doesn’t affect actual parameters.
2) Function – Call by reference method – Unlike call by value, in this method, address of actual arguments (or parameters) is passed to the formal parameters, which means any operation performed on formal parameters affects the value of actual parameters.
We've talked a little bit about functions in the past - they're pieces of code that can be executed on command. In fact we've been using functions right since the very start of this process, we just haven't really talked about them in depth - this is what this tutorial is all about.
As outlined earlier - a function is simply a piece of code (which may or may not need a value to work properly) that you can execute by 'calling' it. There are a bunch of functions built into the core language, but functions can also be created manually (we'll be learning about this a bit later on). The classic function notation looks like this: functionName();. In the previous snippet we would be calling a function called functionName which doesn't take any values to work properly (if it took any values - we'd put them in the brackets). A classic example of a function is the sqrt function which is defined inside math.h. We used this back in the basic mathematics tutorial, it simply square roots any value you pass to it. If we ever need to pass multiple values to a function, we separate them with a comma - so something like this: functionName(valueone, valuetwo, valuethree);.With this under our belts - let's start learning how to create our very own functions that can execute any preset code for us. For this tutorial we are going to work on creating a function which can add two numbers together.
Believe it or not, you've already got one function in your basic program structure. The main function! Let's dissect it a little so we can use something similar to create custom functions. The first thing it consists of is the function's type - it's an int in this case because the main function needs to be an int to be the int main that the compiler recognises as the program's entry point. The next thing (seperated from the type by a space) is the function's name - in this case it's main, and as I just alluded to, this is so the compiler recognises it as a point of entry. Next we have some empty brackets - these are here to illustrate that the function doesn't take any values, if we wanted a function to take values in (in the case of the function we want to create - we'll need to take two values so we can add them together) then we would put them inside the brackets. From here we simply have some curly brackets, inside which is the actual code we want the function to execute when called.
So firstly - why do functions need a type? Well, it's all to do with return. If a function is of type int, it must return an integer (e.g. return 0 which in the case of the main function illustrates that the program exited without any errors). Values that functions return essentially go in the place where the function was originally called - so the sqrt function returns the result of the square root operation (hence when we put it in a cout or something, the square root value get's inserted at the point we called it). Function can have the type of any version of our function, let's just create a function which can output some basic text - let's stick with the classics and make it output 'Hello World'. So firstly let's decide on a type and name - void is probably a good choice here as we can just use cout in the function rather than making it return anything. For the name, I'm going to go with 'say_hello'. So to make the function, we simply write a definition (the structure of which we've already talked about) before the main function in the code. It's important that it's before, otherwise the compiler won't know what you're talking about when you reference the function in main. The following would work fine for our simply say_hello function (I've just used the basic structure we've already discussed and put a cout inside):
Alternatively, you could put the function definition below the main function and simply leave what is called a prototype before the main function (to tell the compiler not to worry when trying to call the function in main as we define it later). A prototype is essentially just the first line of our function definition (no curly brackets) with a semi-colon afterwards. So if we wanted to use the prototype approach instead of putting the function before (some people prefer doing things this way - a lot of it is down to personal preference), we could do something like this:
Now you've got the function setup (either before the main function, or after with a function prototype before) - you can go ahead and call it from the main function using the process we talked about earlier (while we're talking about this - it's worth noting that functions can call each other if you want this nested-like functionality with multiple functions).
So our code at the moment should look something like this (I'm not going to use prototypes in this example just to avoid confusing anyone who doesn't quite understand them):
On running the above program, you should see that our basic function works! Brilliant, now let's modify it a bit so that it can add two numbers. Firstly let's change its name from 'say_hello' to something more appropriate like 'add_two_integers'. For now we can leave it as void and then make it simply do the addition in the cout - but we'll change this later and make it instead use return. Now let's make it take in two integer values, as it requires these to do its job properly (how else would it add two numbers?) - we write these just like variable definitions apart from they are inside the function definition's brackets (and inside the prototype brackets too if you're using a function prototype). If you want the function to take more than one value (like we do), then you can separate the values with commas. I'm going to call the parameters that my function takes (the proper terminology for the values it takes), 'value_one', and 'value_two'. Our function definition at the moment should look something like this:
From here, we can reference 'value_one' and 'value_two' (or whatever you called the 'variables' in the function definition) in our function and it will refer to whatever values the function was called with. It's important to note that if you try to call the function with two values that do not match the type of those that you put in the function definition (or you specify a different number of values) - the compiler should spit out an error telling you that it can't find the function you're talking about. So with the knowledge that we can reference variables that the function was passed, let's make our function output the addition of the two variables it was passed:
It's that simple, as long as we update our function call so that it uses the correct function name and passes the correct values, everything should work!
Excellent! The only problem is that our function for adding two integers isn't usable if we want to put the number in a more complex cout, do more mathematics to it, or pass it to another function. Our function's name is also a little bit misleading as the function doesn't actually add two integers, it outputs the addition of two integers. To fix this, let's just change the function type and use return. Since the addition of two integers should always result in an integer, we can use the int function type. Now we've done this we must make the function return a value or the compiler will (should) complain. Let's go ahead and remove the cout line currently in there as it's getting in the way, and replace it instead with a line that returns the addition.
All we need to do now is update the function call in main so we actually use the value it returns somehow - I'm just going to multiply the addition of the two values by 2. The full source code should look something like the following:
And tada, we created our very own fully functional function! This is a very important technique when creating applications/programs using C++ and should be a process you get very used to in the creation process. If you fancy the challenge, try creating a basic function that takes three parameters - it adds the first two, and then multiplies the result by the third parameter if the third parameter is less than 100.
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There are a few more things we should probably talk about before this tutorial is over, namely what we can do when some parameters are not specified. The first thing we can do is something called overloading functions. This is a key concept in C++ which allows you to write two or more functions with the same name that take different parameters!
At current, our 'add_two_integers' function will only be called when we pass it two integer values, however we could, if we wanted, write a function with the same name that takes different parameters or parameters of different types, and the compiler would call the correct function for the job depending on the parameters we passed in. Let's say, for example, that we also wanted a version of our function that added floats -- if we renamed the function to 'add_two_numbers' (so that the name makes more sense), we could write both versions of our function (one for integers and one for floats) like so:
In the example above, we could then call 'add_two_numbers' with either two integers or two floats without a problem, and the appropriate function would be called. Similarly, we could, if we wanted, make a function with the same name that just takes completely different parameters, and the compiler would choose the right one, spitting out an error if it can't find one which takes the parameters we're giving it. This concept is very important when creating bigger applications and is used all over the place in the world of C-programming.
The other way we could address the 'issue' of the wrong number of parameters being passed (although not the wrong type), is by using default parameters. This is essentially where we can just give a value to use for a parameter if none are specified, so in our 'add_two_numbers' function we might want to default the values to 0 and 0 if no parameters are passed to it -- this can be accomplished via an equals sign in the function parameter declaration brackets:
In the above we could just call add_two_numbers (); with no problem. It's important to remember that after the first default parameter in a function declaration (e.g. int value_one = 0), all preceding parameters must also have default values assigned to them (and if you think about it, this makes sense).
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It heavily depends on usage situations, but function overloads are often preferable to default parameters in situations in which overloads don't cause a whole bunch of code repeating -- this is because mixing default parameters and function overloads can mess things up a little bit. Consider the following in which the compiler doesn't know which function to use:
Your compiler should spit out an error in cases like this - something along the lines of 'ambiguous call to overloaded function', but be careful as this can really mess up your code and cause a lot of confusion!
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To tie off this tutorial, let's just touch on a concept called recursion. Recursion, in the context of functions, is where a function calls itself. This concept can seem a little bit confusing at first, however it shouldn't be totally alien to you. Usually it's best when people figure out recursion for themselves, so all I'm going to do to help you along is show you the following example of recursion:
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Recursion can be a little mind-bending, and in the above example isn't entirely necessary, but it's a very important topic when programming and is the best solution in a number of situations. If you don't understand the above code snippet, try running through the program line-by-line, starting from the 'countdown' call in 'main', and just do exactly what your program would do upon execution in your mind. We've covered a lot in this tutorial so you should be doing a lot of experimentation to test out the different things demonstrated -- none of the concepts covered should be hard as nails, but you need to make sure you fully understand them before moving on to the next tutorial (as is the case with most of the tutorials in this course - each tutorial builds on things learnt from the last).