Passing arguments in c functions

Question

I'm newbie in c. I have written a function in c and passes the arguments to it but I got different answers as I expect.

The function is

void GridDim(float long1, float long2, float dx,
             float lat1, float lat2, float dy,
             float depth1, float depth2, float dh,
             int *m, int *n, int *k)
{
    *m = (int) ((long2-long1)/dx+1);
    *n = (int) ((lat2-lat1)/dy+1);
    *k = (int) ((depth2-depth1)/dh+1);
}

I used gcc to compile it: gcc -c GridDim.c

then I used the object file for a main file and compile that file

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <math.h>
int main()
{
 int m,n,k;
 GridDim(20.0,30.0,0.1,10.0,15.0,0.1,5.0,20.0,5.0,&m,&n,&k);
 printf("m= %d\nn= %d\nk= %d\n", m, n, k);
 return 1;
}

gcc test.c -o test GridDim.o

but I did not get the correct answer. Does anybody know why?

the answer should be m=101 n=51 k=4 but I got m=1 n=1 k=-12

Answer 1

You need to declare a function prototype for your GridDim function and include it in the file that contains your main method.

The reason is that unless the compiler has a function prototype that declares the types of the arguments it will promote all floats into doubles. At run-time your floats gets promoted into doubles and then passed to GridDim which reads the first half of the double and interprets it as a float. If you print the values inside GridDim you will see that the floats come in as corrupted values.

If you declare your method in a header file, e.g. GridDim.h:

#ifndef __GRID_DIM_DOT_H__
#define __GRID_DIM_DOT_H__

extern void GridDim(float long1, float long2, float dx, float lat1, float lat2, float dy, float depth1, float depth2, float dh, int* m, int* n, int* k);

#endif/*__GRID_DIM_DOT_H__*/

... and #include it in GridDim.c (to ensure that the definition matches the declaration):

#include <stdio.h>
#include "GridDim.h"

void GridDim(float long1, float long2, float dx,
             float lat1, float lat2, float dy,
             float depth1, float depth2, float dh,
             int *m, int *n, int *k)
{
    printf("long1 =  %10.6f\n", long1);
    printf("long2 =  %10.6f\n", long2);
    printf("dx =     %10.6f\n", dx);
    printf("lat1 =   %10.6f\n", lat1);
    printf("lat2 =   %10.6f\n", lat2);
    printf("long1 =  %10.6f\n", dy);
    printf("depth1 = %10.6f\n", depth1);
    printf("depth2 = %10.6f\n", depth2);
    printf("dh =     %10.6f\n", dh);

    *m = (int) ((long2-long1)/dx+1);
    *n = (int) ((lat2-lat1)/dy+1);
    *k = (int) ((depth2-depth1)/dh+1);
}

... and #include it in Main.c to ensure that the call matches the declaration:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <math.h>

#include "GridDim.h"

int main()
{
 int m,n,k;
 GridDim(20.0f,30.0f,0.1f,10.0f,15.0f,0.1f,5.0f,20.0f,5.0f,&m,&n,&k);
 printf("m= %d\nn= %d\nk= %d\n", m, n, k);
 return 1;
}

... then the arguments will be passed correctly to the GridDim function. I added some printf statements so that you can see this.

If you comment out the #include "GridDim.h" in Main.c then you will see what is happening in your current version of the code:

long1 =    0.000000
long2 =    0.000000
dx =      -0.000000
lat1 =     0.000000
lat2 =     0.000000
long1 =   -0.000000
depth1 =   0.000000
depth2 =   0.000000
dh =       0.000000
m= 1
n= 1
k= -2147483648

With the #include the output looks like this:

long1 =   20.000000
long2 =   30.000000
dx =       0.100000
lat1 =    10.000000
lat2 =    15.000000
long1 =    0.100000
depth1 =   5.000000
depth2 =  20.000000
dh =       5.000000
m= 101
n= 51
k= 4

Answer 2

You are missing declaration of function. Declare function before main()

void GridDim(float long1, float long2, float dx,
           float lat1, float lat2, float dy,
             float depth1, float depth2, float dh,
             int *m, int *n, int *k);

And compile both files at a time

gcc main.c griddim.c -o result
./result