Question

I am trying to make a switch statement that takes in a word into an array and then throws each letter through a switch statement and allocates a point to each letter depending on which letter it is and giving a final point value for the word, and I can’t seem to get the array part right. Any help would be appreciated!

int main(){
int letter_points = 0;
char word[7];
int word_length = 7;
int i;
printf("Enter a Word\n");
scanf("%s", word);
for(i = 0; i < word_length; i++){

switch(word){
    //1 point
    case 'A':
    case 'E':
    case 'I':
    case 'L':
    case 'N':
    case 'O':
    case 'R':
    case 'S':
    case 'T':
    case 'U':
        letter_points++;
        break;
    //2 points
    case 'D':
    case 'G':
        letter_points += 2;
        break;
    //3 points
    case 'B':
    case 'C':
    case 'M':
    case 'P':
        letter_points += 3;
        break;
    //4 points
    case 'F':
    case 'H':
    case 'V':
    case 'W':
    case 'Y':
        letter_points += 4;
        break;
    //5 points
    case 'K':
        letter_points += 5;
        break;
    //8 points
    case 'J':
    case 'X':
        letter_points += 8;
        break;
    //10 points
    case 'Q':
    case 'Z':
        letter_points += 10;
        break;
}
}
printf("%d\n", letter_points);
return;
}

Answer 1

Try using this

 switch(word[i]){ 

in the switch statement. As it stands, you are not testing each element in your array even though you are iterating over the range of the array. Having said that I would go for the approach suggested by Kerrek SB in the other answer. This is much neater and more compact.