Re: Suggested method for returning a string from a C program?

On 3/19/2025 1:27 AM, Tim Rentsch wrote:

DFS <nospam@dfs.com> writes:
 

On 3/18/2025 11:07 PM, Tim Rentsch wrote:
>
>

Have you thought about how large the value of 'n' can
become inside the while() loop?

>
I was too smug in my first reply. [...]

 Yes, I knew that already.  Did you think I asked the question
without having first investigated the problem?

I wouldn't presume.
Did you investigate first?
I just now did:
gcc on Kali Linux (in Windows WSL)
run it:  $ ./weird start stop
$time ./weird 1 1000000
<1000000 lines will be output>
max n = 56991483520 reached at input = 704511
real    0m5.792s
code
-----------------------------------------------------------------
// If n is even, divide it by two.
// If n is odd, multiply it by three and add one.
// Repeat until n is one.
// example: the sequence for n=3 is  3 10 5 16 8 4 2 1
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
     int steps, input;
     int startN = atoi(argv[1]);
     int stopN  = atoi(argv[2]);
     int64_t n = 0, max = 0, thismax = 0;
     for (int i = startN; i <= stopN; i++) {
         n = i;
         steps = 1;
         thismax = n;
         while(1) {
             if((n % 2) == 0)
                 {n /= 2;}
             else
                 {n = (n * 3) + 1;}
             if (n > max)      {max = n; input = i;}
             if (n > thismax) {thismax = n;}
             steps++;
             if (i == 1) {
                 printf("input 1, max n =      1, steps =    1\n");
                 break;
             }
             if(n == 1) {
                 printf("input %d, max n = %6lld, steps = %4d\n", i, thismax, steps);
                 break;
             }
         }
     }
     printf("\nmax n = %lld reached at input = %d\n", max, input);
     return 0;
}
-----------------------------------------------------------------
You'll get compilation warnings about the printf specifier used with int64_t.