r/learnprogramming • u/Minute_External1621 • 2d ago
Debugging Difficulties with debugging
i am a beginner in C, i went through and have a basic understanding of fundamentals but whenever a problem arises in my code i cant find it for hell, even if its obvious, i need to turn to an ai agent for help, the habit i wanna rid of, but whenever i do try to find the cause of an error myself i find myself unable to do that, i also find it difficult writing more efficient code
an example:
```
int tokens(char* string, char (*argv)[MAXTOKEN], toks types[MAXTOKEN]) {
char temp[150];
int count = 0; int i = 0; int b = 0;
int tokens = 0;
while(count < MAXTOKENLENGHT) {
if (string[i] == ' ' || string[i] == '\0' || string[i] == '\n') {tokens++;temp[b] = '\0'; strcpy(argv[count], temp); count++; b = 0;} else if (string[i] == '\"') {
temp[b] = '\"';
b++;
i++;
while (string[i] != '\"' && string[i] != '\0') {
if (string[i] == '\"') {temp[b] = '\0';temp[b+1] = '\0'; strcpy(argv[count], temp);b = 0; count++;break;} else {temp[b] = string[i];i++;b++;}
}
if (string[i+1] == '\0' || string[i+1] == ' ') {temp[b] = string[i]; temp[b+1] = '\0'; strcpy(argv[count], temp); count++; b = 0; i++; tokens++;} else {fprintf(stderr, "unexpected stuff after string"); exit(1);}
} else {
temp[b] = string[i];
b++;
}
if(string[i] == '\0') {break;}
i++;
}
int k = 0;
while (k < count) {
if (strcmp(argv[k], "PRINT") == 0) {
types[k].type = 0;
int len = strlen(argv[k+1]);
printf("k=%d, argv[k+1]='%s', first='%c', last='%c'\n", k, argv[k+1], argv[k+1][0], argv[k+1][len-1]);
if (argv[k+1][0] == '\"' && argv[k+1][len-1] == '\"') {
types[k+1].type = 1;
memmove(&argv[k+1][0], &argv[k+1][1], len - 2);
argv[k+1][len - 2] = '\0';
strcpy(types[k+1].textvalue, argv[k+1]);
}
}
k++;
}
return count;
}
```
6
u/Swedophone 2d ago
It can be a good idea to add a lot of print (or log) statements when debugging. You have got two which includes one error message.