Let's say that I need to format the output of an array to display a fixed number of elements per line. How do I go about doing that using modulus operation?
Using C++, the code below works for displaying 6 elements per line but I have no idea how and why it works?
for ( count = 0 ; count < size ; count++)
{
cout << somearray[count];
if( count % 6 == 5) cout << endl;
}
What if I want to display 5 elements per line? How do i find the exact expression needed?
5 Answers
in C++ expression a % b returns remainder of division of a by b (if they are positive. For negative numbers sign of result is implementation defined). For example:
5 % 2 = 1
13 % 5 = 3
With this knowledge we can try to understand your code. Condition count % 6 == 5 means that newline will be written when remainder of division count by 6 is five. How often does that happen? Exactly 6 lines apart (excercise : write numbers 1..30 and underline the ones that satisfy this condition), starting at 6-th line (count = 5).
To get desired behaviour from your code, you should change condition to count % 5 == 4, what will give you newline every 5 lines, starting at 5-th line (count = 4).
Basically modulus Operator gives you remainder simple Example in maths what's left over/remainder of 11 divided by 3? answer is 2
for same thing C++ has modulus operator ('%')
Basic code for explanation
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
int num = 11;
cout << "remainder is " << (num % 3) << endl;
return 0;
}
Which will display
remainder is 2
It gives you the remainder of a division.
int c=11, d=5;
cout << (c/d) * d + c % d; // gives you the value of c
This JSFiddle project could help you to understand how modulus work:
The modulus function works something like this:
function modulus(x,y){
var m = Math.floor(x / y);
var r = m * y;
return x - r;
}
You can think of the modulus operator as giving you a remainder. count % 6 divides 6 out of count as many times as it can and gives you a remainder from 0 to 5 (These are all the possible remainders because you already divided out 6 as many times as you can). The elements of the array are all printed in the for loop, but every time the remainder is 5 (every 6th element), it outputs a newline character. This gives you 6 elements per line. For 5 elements per line, use
if (count % 5 == 4)
