Question

I have a definite set of strings and its corresponding numbers:

kill -> 1
live -> 2
half_kill -> 3
dont_live -> 4

List is of 30 such strings and their number mapping.

If user enters “kill”, I need to return 1 and if he enters “dont_live” I need to return 4.

How should I achieve this in c program? I am looking for an efficient solution because this operation needs to be done 100s of times.

• should I put them in #define in my .h file?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

A possible solution:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

struct entry {
    char *str;
    int n;
};

struct entry dict[] = {
    "kill", 1,
    "live", 2,
    "half_kill", 3,
    "dont_live", 4,
    0,0
};

int
number_for_key(char *key)
{
    int i = 0;
    char *name = dict[i].str;
    while (name) {
        if (strcmp(name, key) == 0)
            return dict[i].n;
        name = dict[++i].str;
    }
    return 0;
}

int
main (int argc, char *argv[])
{
    printf("enter your keyword: ");
    char s[100]; scanf("%s", s);
    printf("the number is: %d\n", number_for_key(s));
    return 0;
}