Question

Possible Duplicate:
Consecutive Blank space Removal in C

Prompt:
A text file contains a bunch of characters. There are no tab characters within the file. Write a program that replaces two or more consecutive blanks by a single blank. The input from this program should come from a file whose name has been supplied via argv[1]. The output from this program should go to standard output.

Question: How to remove consecutive blank spaces in a text file?

I have started my code and it compiles but then doesn’t do anything. Im not sure where I went wrong with the code. I want the code to basically simulated a FMS which says that if the text read in is equal to a blank space two times in a row then place the text from the file there but I am having trouble getting it to print out correctly.

Input:

Let’s   go  to  the movies.

Output:

Let’s go to the movies.

My written Code:

#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, char* argv[]){
    int i;
    char c;
    FILE* fin;

    fin=fopen("textfile38", "r");
    fscanf(fin,"%c", &c);
    while((i=getchar()) !=EOF)
            putchar(c);
    if(i ==' ')
    {
            putchar(i);
    }
    else
    {
            putchar(' ');
    }
    printf("%c \n", c);
    return 0;
}

I get it to return L. Am I not reading in all of the characters? Any help would be appreciated thanks.

UPDATED CODE:

#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, char* argv[]){
    char c;
    FILE* fin;

    fin=fopen("textfile38", "r");
    while(fscanf(fin,"%c", &c) !=EOF){
            if(c ==' ')
            {
                    putchar(c);
            }
            else
            {
                    putchar(' ');
            }
            printf("%c", c);
    }
    return 0;
}

Only problem is that the spaces are still there from the input, also its printing vertically not horizontally, and i don’t know why.

Answer 1

You probably need to keep state as to what you have seen, so something like….

   int seenspace = 0;
   while((i=getchar()) !=EOF) {
   {
       if(i != ' ')
       {
            if (seenspace) 
               putchar(' ');
            putchar(i);
            seenspace = 0;
       } else {
            if (seenspace)  {
               putchar(' '); 
               seenspace = 0; 
            } else {
               seeenspace = 1;
            }
       }
   }
   if (seenspace) // flush the training blank if any 
      putchar(' ');