Code to replace opening and closing " with different strings (UVa 272 - Tex Quotes) not working

Question

I have written C++ code for this problem. The problem is basically to replace an opening " with `` and a closing " with ''.

It is quite easy but I am getting wrong answer. Can someone help me find a problem with my code?

Sample input:

"To be or not to be," quoth the Bard, "that
is the question".
The programming contestant replied: "I must disagree.
To `C' or not to `C', that is The Question!"

Sample output:

``To be or not to be,'' quoth the Bard, ``that
is the question''.
The programming contestant replied: ``I must disagree.
To `C' or not to `C', that is The Question!''

Code:

#include <cstdio>
#include <iostream>
#include <cstring>
#include <string>

using namespace std;

int main(){
    string inputString;

    while (getline(cin, inputString)){
        int nDoubleQuotes = 0;

        for (int i = 0 ; i < (int)inputString.length(); ++i){
            if (inputString[i] == '"'){
                ++nDoubleQuotes;

                nDoubleQuotes = nDoubleQuotes%2;

                if (nDoubleQuotes == 1)
                    cout << "``";
                else
                    cout << "''";
            }
            else
                cout << inputString[i];
        }

        cout << '\n';
        inputString.clear();
    }
    return 0;
}

You should really include enough explanation of what you're trying to do that your question will remain meaningful if the link goes dead. — Jerry Coffin, Jul 24 '13 at 04:57
Hello, i think the problem is getline. Please check my updated answer. — keelar, Jul 24 '13 at 05:38
Btw, simpler than having an integer, incrementing it and limiting it to modulo 2 would be to have a `bool inQuotes = false;` and instead of increment and clipping, just do `inQuotes = !inQuotes;` to flip the flag. — Sebastian Redl, Jul 24 '13 at 17:19

sowrov · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-24T19:26:53.773

2

Unfortunately your code do not even pass sample testcase! Anyways, just put this line, int nDoubleQuotes = 0; out of the while( getline( cin , inputString ) ) loop, the reason you need to do it is, In the input file a quotation mark (") can start in one line and can end in any other following line, as the sample test case showed in the problem statement:

The programming contestant replied: "I must disagree. #quote start on this line
To `C' or not to `C', that is The Question!" #quote ends on this

If you initialize quote counter variable on every line then you are assuming, quote marker start and end on the same line, which is wrong.

edited Jul 24 '13 at 19:26

answered Jul 24 '13 at 05:43

sowrov

1,018
10
16

Good job :D, I didn't see that! – keelar Jul 24 '13 at 05:46
@sowrov : Although I got an AC with that but still I would like to know why can't I include the double Quotes variable inside the while loop, I got correct answers for sample inputs and for many other test cases I tried, I thought it had the same effect as with the one outside the while loop, at an odd number of quotes nDoubleQuotes would be 1 and as every sentence ended at the even number of quotes at the end of the sentence nDoubleQuotes has to be 0, and the same thing I tried to achieve individually for every string, what went wrong? can you explain? – AnkitSablok Jul 24 '13 at 08:59
The problem is that you restart the outer loop for every line in the input. If the `nDoubleQuotes` variable is inside the loop, it will go out of scope and reappear (and be reinitialized to 0) for the next iteration. In other words, you're resetting the "am I in quotes" state for every line of text. – Sebastian Redl Jul 24 '13 at 17:18

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 24 '13 at 17:08

You can solve this just reading a character at a time. You need to keep track of whether you are inside a quote or not in order to print the correct replacement for ".

#include <iostream>

int main()
{
    bool inquote = false;
    char ch;
    while (std::cin.get(ch)) {
        if (ch == '"') {
            std::cout << (inquote ? "''" : "``");
            inquote = !inquote;
        } else {
            std::cout << ch;
        }
    }
}

Code to replace opening and closing " with different strings (UVa 272 - Tex Quotes) not working

2 Answers2