Turing Help for a beginner

[SIXAXIS]

Hi guys,

I'm new here and I'm also new to Turing. I have to make a program that calculates the average, youngest, and oldest age in a class that's size is determined by the user. Here is what I have so far:

code:

var age, age1, age2, n : int put "How many students are in your class?" get n age1 := 0 age2 := 0 cls for i : 1 .. n     put "What is your age?"     get age     if age > age1 then         age := age1     elsif age < age1 then         age := age2     end if     cls end for cls put "The youngest person is ", age2, ", the oldest person is ", age1, ", and the average age is ", round ((age1 + age2) / 2), "."

Whenever I run this, it works fine, but at the end, it says that the youngest, oldest, and average age is 0. What am I doing wrong? Is it the if statements?

[fishtastic]

this works.

Turing:

var total, age, young, old, n : int put "How many students are in your class?" get n total := 0 old := 0 young := maxint for i : 1 .. n     put "What is your age?"     get age     total += age     if age > old then         old := age     end if     if age < young then         young := age     end if     cls end for put "The youngest person is ", young, ", the oldest person is ", old, ", and the average age is ", total / n : 2, "."

This is really simple so you should get this.

also.
use better variable names please.

[SIXAXIS]

Thank you for your help. I understand it now. And yeah, after I posted this I changed the names in my Turing file, but didn't re-post it.

[syntax_error]

yes thank fishtastic since he/she just did your work for you
how graces of him/her
make sure you do understand the differnce in what he/she did for not always will someone here do the work for you

btw fishtastic dont mind my satire here but next time just explain them what they need to do NOT do it for them

[fishtastic]

syntax_error @ Wed Jan 30, 2008 1:05 pm wrote:

btw fishtastic dont mind my satire here but next time just explain them what they need to do NOT do it for them

Yes.. perhaps I should use pseudo code instead. So people will try to understand it more.

But, it was easier just to fix the problem and show the difference than explaning, becasue the problem already gave you the logic you need to solve it.

[ericfourfour]

Just a small improvement on this part:

Turing:

if age > old then     old := age end if if age < young then     young := age end if

It can be reduced to:

Turing:

age := max (min (age, old), young)

It's a shorter way to keep numbers within a range. It works like this:

Turing:

value := max (min (value, upperBound), lowerBound)

[HeavenAgain]

shorter doesnt mean better
your method with

code:

age := max (min (age, old), young)

works, but how do you know whats old (upperBound) and whats young (lowerBound)? the problem asked to find the oldest and youngest in a give N. so with that you just lost whats old and whats young, because old and young is not given, therefore you gotta keep track of it
though it can be shorten to

code:

young := min (young, age) old := max (old, age)

or

code:

if age > old then     old := age %% instead of 2 if, we can use elsif elsif age < young then     young := age end if

[fishtastic]

code:

age := max (min (age, old), young)

ericfourfour this doesn't work.
look at the situation.

code:

if age > old then     old := age %% instead of 2 if, we can use elsif elsif age < young then     young := age end if

HeavenAgain this doesn't always work either.
there are chance where input is the oldest and the youngest but you only checked one that way.

however

code:

young := min (young, age) old := max (old, age)

this does work! and its shorter!

[ericfourfour]

Woops. Misread his code. I read it like he was trying to keep the age within a range. The example fishtastic just concluded with is the better solution.