Question

I’m trying to allow for the user to enter a last name and delete it, if there is multiple people by the same last name, the user can then type in the first name and delete that specific individual. My issue is that I cant figure out a way to allow for the function to decipher whether or not there multiple contacts with the same last name. I can either get it to work where it only recognizes the first of the multiple contacts, or all the multiple contact, but not both scenarios. For ex. If I have a list of mike smith, ted smith, and phil stevens, I can either get it to delete one of the smiths, but not stevens, or I can get it to delete stevens but not just one of the smiths.

typedef struct friends_contact{

   char *First_Name;
   char *Last_Name;
   char *home;
   char *cell;
}fr;

Above is the structure, and below is obviously the rest of the code

char delete_contact(fr*friends ,int* counter, int i)
{
    char name_search[50]={'\0'};
    char name_search3[50]={'\0'};
    char Delete[5]={'\0'};
    int flag=0;

    printf("Search by last name\n");
    scanf("%s",name_search);//Name entry

    for(i=0;i<*counter;i++)
    {
        if(strcmp(name_search,friends[i].Last_Name)==0)//Copys over the name entered
            flag++;
    }
    if(flag<=1)
    {
        strcpy(friends[i].Last_Name,Delete);
        printf("Name was deleted");
    }
    if(flag>1)
    {
        printf("There is more then 1 " "%s " ",please enter a first name\n",name_search);
        scanf("%s",name_search3);
        for (i=0;i<*counter;i++)
        {
            if(strcmp(name_search3,friends[i].First_Name)==0)
            {
                strcpy(friends[i].First_Name,Delete);
                printf("Name was deleted");
            }
        }
    }

    free(friends[i].First_Name);
    free(friends[i].Last_Name);
    free(friends[i].home);
    free(friends[i].cell);
}

I was trying to use a flag that counts as the firstfor loop cycles through, but all that does is count how many times it searches through the list of contacts( or the *counter).

Is there a way to get the function to count how many like last names there are so I can have the program determine when it needs to ask for the first name and when it does not?

Answer 1

char delete_contact(fr*friends ,int* counter, int i)
{
    char name_search[50]={'\0'};
    char name_search3[50]={'\0'};
    char Delete[5]={'\0'};
    int flag=0;

    printf("Search by last name\n");
    scanf("%s",name_search);//Name entry

    for(i=0;i<*counter;i++)
    {
        if(strcmp(name_search,friends[i].Last_Name)==0)//Copys over the name entered
            flag++;
    }
    if(flag == 1)
    {
        strcpy(friends[i].Last_Name,Delete);

        free(friends[i].First_Name);
        free(friends[i].Last_Name);
        free(friends[i].home);
        free(friends[i].cell);

        printf("Name was deleted");
    }
    if(flag>1)
    {
        printf("There is more then 1 " "%s " ",please enter a first name\n",name_search);
        scanf("%s",name_search3);
        for (i=0;i<*counter;i++)
        {
            if((strcmp(name_search3,friends[i].First_Name)==0) && (strcmp(name_search,friends[i].Last_Name) == 0))
            {
                strcpy(friends[i].First_Name,Delete);

                free(friends[i].First_Name);
                free(friends[i].Last_Name);
                free(friends[i].home);
                free(friends[i].cell);

                 printf("Name was deleted");
            }
        }
    }
}

You can try like this.