Loops and Modulo

I'm learning C and I am having a hard time understanding loops and the usage of modulo. I know Loops are used to shorten up the program and Modulo's are used to get out the remainder. My assignment was to "Write a C program to find the sum of an individual positive integer".

I just spent few hours trying to understand this problem. I experimented too.

    int  n,d=0,s=0;
    printf("\nEnter a number\n\n");
    scanf("%d",&n);


while(n>0)
     { 
           d = n%10;
       s = s+d;
       n = n/10;
     }

printf("\n sum of the individual digits = %d",s);

My questions are:

Can anyone help me understand the flow of this program? Why is Modulo being used? and Why is there a n = n/10

Experiements I've d开发者_开发技巧one:

When I removed d = n%10; line the output prints out the digits seperatley. thus it's not calculating.

i.e 123 = 6 --> It's giving me 136

When I removed the line n = n/10 It's not showing me an output. The printf statement has a parameter 's'

Thanks in Advance!

---

Taking the modulo in d = n % 10 makes d equal to the last digit of n in base 10. n = n / 10 removes the last digit from n.

Modulo is essentially taking the remainder, so let's say n = 123. Then n / 10 is 12 and n % 10 is 3.

Removing the n = n / 10 means that n doesn't change between each run of the loop, so the loop condition n > 0 is always true and therefore the loop keeps going until you manually kill the program.

Here is a trace of the program with n = 123. Initially d and s are both zero.

 while (n > 0) {  // n is 123, which is greater than zero, so we enter the loop
     d = n % 10;  // 123 % 10 is 3, so d is now 3
     s = s + d;   // 0 + 3 is 3, so s is now 3
     n = n / 10;  // 123 / 10 is 12, so n is now 12.
 }                // go back to the top of the loop
 while (n > 0) {  // n is 12, which is still greater than zero
     d = n % 10;  // 12 % 10 is 2, so d is now 2
     s = s + d    // 3 + 2 is 5, so s is now 5
     n = n / 10;  // 12 / 10 is 1, so n is now 1
 }                // go back to the top again
 while (n > 0) {  // n is 1, which is still greater than zero
     d = n % 10;  // 1 % 10 is 1, so d is now 1
     s = s + d;   // 5 + 1 is 6, so s is now 6
     n = n / 10;  // 1 / 10 is 0, so n is now 0
 }                // go back to the top
 while (n > 0) {  // n is 0, which is not greater than zero, so we skip
                  // to after the loop body
 printf("\n sum of the individual digits = %d",s);

---

Imagine you have a piece of paper with a hole in it just big enough to show one digit. To get the sum of the digits you have to put that paper over your number so the ones digit shows. You write that digit down somewhere. Then you slide your number to the right so that the tens digit is under the hole. You add that to the previous digit you wrote down, and so on, until there are no more digits left.

The piece of paper with the hole is the modulo operation and the sliding the number to the right at each step is the dividing by 10 operation.

And to give a concrete example of the computation:

Say the number is 576.

576 % 10 = 6

so we've picked off the 6 and we add that to the running sum of 0 to get 6. Then you do integer division by 10:

576 / 10 = 57

Now you modulo that:

57 % 10 = 7

so we've picked off the 7 and can add that to the running sum of 6 to get 13. Then it's integer division by 10 again:

57 / 10 = 5

And modulo again:

5 % 10 = 5

We've picked off the final digit and add it to the running sum to get 18 -- the sum of the digits. Then we divide by 10 again:

5 / 10 = 0

And since that's zero, the loop condition (n > 0) is now false and we end.

So the modulo is being used to pick off the rightmost digit of the current number and the division is used to make each digit in turn be the rightmost digit.

---

Try these:

int n = 12;
printf("%d\n", n / 10);

int j = 12;
printf("%d\n", j % 10);

int x = 13;
x = x / 10;   // right hand side of "=" get evaluated first
printf("%d\n", x);

Observe the output in each case.

Regarding your last point:

while (n > 0)
{
    // some code.
}

This means: While the value of n is greater than zero run some code. Now, if you don't change n, some code will run for eternity. HTH.