How to check an array for non-zero values (elements)

Question

I am wondering how to approach writing a function that would return whether there were at least three values not equal to 0. I've searched for similar problems, but I couldn't find any effective solution. In order to explain my problem, here is an example:

I have an array which contains these elements: [1,0,2,0,4,0,0,3,0,0]. I want to check if there are at least 3 elements not equal to zero.

My code would return 1 if there are at least 3 elements != 0 , or return 0 if there are less than 3 elements !=0.

So in my example it should return 1.

tskuzzy · Accepted Answer · 2012-06-10 20:15:08Z

5

Count the number of elements not equal to zero. If less than three, return false, else return true.

In order to obtain the count, loop through the contents of the array using a for loop and then use an if statement to test if the element is zero.

answered Jun 10, 2012 at 20:15

tskuzzy

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2 Comments

Daniel Fischer Over a year ago

And if one is in optimising mood, break out of the counting loop when the count reaches 3.

tskuzzy Over a year ago

Pre-mature optimization on SO? Heresy!

mohit · Accepted Answer · 2012-06-11 05:28:40Z

1

int non_zero(int a[], int lim) {  
    int i, count;
    count = 0;
    for (i = 0; i < lim && count < 3; i++)
        if (a[i] != 0)
            count++;
    return count == 3 ? 1 : 0;
}

answered Jun 11, 2012 at 5:28

mohit

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Comments

Hamoudaq · Accepted Answer · 2012-06-12 22:23:39Z

-1

i'd like to share my solution

int check(){
    int arr[10]= [1,0,2,0,4,0,0,3,0,0];
    int total=0;
    for(int i=0;i<=10;i++){
        total+=arr[i];
     }
    return total;
}

thank you guys for trying to solve my problem <3

answered Jun 12, 2012 at 22:23

Hamoudaq

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1 Comment

gkimsey Over a year ago

This only gets the sum, not the number of nonzero elements. Also, depending on how big the array is and how big the elements of the array can be, you may end up with an overflow that puts the total back to 0, meaning it may not tell you whether any element is nonzero either.

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