Passing arrays into function in tideman

Question

I've created a solution to week 3's tideman problem which is entirely logically correct. Unfortunately, I had to dodge the standard solution by commenting out parts of a function and altering its parameters, so my solution cannot be accepted by check50.

The problem i'm facing is using arrays in functions.

C implicitly converts arrays when they are used as parameters in functions, so how am I supposed to code with a function such as "int record_preferences(int ranks[])".

What does ranks[] even mean? An array? An element of the array?

I altered the parameters once to "int record_preferences(int k, int ranks[k])" and called it with "record_preferences(j, ranks[j])" so I could actually use an element of the array, but that produced errors.

Before anyone mentions pointers - they are only taught in week 4 - I believe this problem should be solvable without pointers .

// Query for votes for (int i = 0; i < voter_count; i++) { // ranks[i] is voter's ith preference int ranks[candidate_count];

    // Query for each rank
    for (int j = 0; j < candidate_count; j++)
    {
        string name = get_string("Rank %i: ", j + 1);

        if (!vote(j, name, ranks[j]))
        {
            printf("Invalid vote.\n");
            return 3;
        }
        else
        {
        ranks[j] = save;

        //Record_preferences should start here.
        for(int k = 0; k < candidate_count; k++)
        {
        int c = j;

        if(ranks[j] == k)
        {

            continue;
        }
        if(j > 0)
        {
            while(c > 0)
                {

                    if(k == ranks[c-1])
                    {
                        --c;

                        goto next;
                    }

                    --c;

                }
            ++preferences[ranks[j]][k];

            next:
            continue;
        }

        else
        {
            ++preferences[ranks[j]][k];

        }
        }
           //I commented out the record_preferences() function. 
           //record_preferences();
        }
    }

    printf("\n");
}

add_pairs();
sort_pairs();
lock_pairs();
print_winner();
return 0;

}

Answer 1

ranks[] means an array of values that has been named ranks; from the declaration, we can tell that the values will all be integers. Any time you see a name followed by square brackets in C-based languages (C, C++, Java, etc.), you know that you are dealing with an array. If you have an integer or integer variable (such as i) in the square brackets, then you are dealing with an element of the array. But, the record_preferences function deals with the full array and not with only one of its elements.

As for how you are supposed to code it, the assignment's specification says to make this function "update the global preferences array to add the current voter's preferences." This is using the rankings that were captured in the vote function--the same ranks[] array is being passed to both functions.

Hope that helps.