structure program giving unexpected output

Question

/* It is not entering data into the third scanf() statement .*/

#include<stdio.h>
#include<conio.h>
#include<string.h>
void main(void)
{
    struct book
    {
        char name;
        int pages;
        float price;

    };
    struct book a1,a2,a3,a4;
    printf("Enter data into 3 books\n");
    scanf("%c %d %f",&a1.name,&a1.pages,&a1.price);
    scanf("%c %d %f",&a2.name,&a2.pages,&a2.price);
    scanf("%c %d %f",&a3.name,&a3.pages,&a3.price);
    printf(" you entered:\n");
    printf("\n%c %d %f",a1.name,a1.pages,a1.price);
    printf("\n%c %d %f",a2.name,a2.pages,a2.price);
    printf("\n%c %d %f",a3.name,a3.pages,a3.price);

    getch();
}

Answer 1

You want to use strings, not single characters:

int main(void)
{
    struct book
    {
        char name[100];
        int pages;
        float price;

    };
    struct book a1,a2,a3,a4;
    printf("Enter data into 3 books\n");
    scanf("%s %d %f",&a1.name,&a1.pages,&a1.price);
    scanf("%s %d %f",&a2.name,&a2.pages,&a2.price);
    scanf("%s %d %f",&a3.name,&a3.pages,&a3.price);
    printf(" you entered:\n");
    printf("%s %d %f\n",a1.name,a1.pages,a1.price);
    printf("%s %d %f\n",a2.name,a2.pages,a2.price);
    printf("%s %d %f\n",a3.name,a3.pages,a3.price);

    return 0;
}

But note this is prone to buffer overflows, and won't deal correctly with book names that contain spaces.

Answer 2

you are wanting a string as a name, while you are giving a %c specifier for the input which expects a character.

so either use %s for a string input.

or better use some string function like gets()

gets (a1.name);
scanf ( %d %f",&a1.pages,&a1.price);

And again to remind that you must be careful with size of string(char array) to avoid stack overflows.

Thanks

Alok.Kr.