C++ vector and string, count vowels - string

Question

This program supposed to read a text and count the number of vowels and consonants. it should ignore any non alphabetic characters. the result should me something like this:
Enter your text: I have to TURN this..in before midnight!!
a, e, i, o, u, y
1, 3, 5, 2, 1, 0
There are 19 consonants.
but the result from my code is :
Enter your text: I have to TURN this..in before midnight!!
a, e, i, o, u, y
1, 3, 4, 2, 0, 0
There are 31 consonants.
I dont know what is happening!! Also this is an assignment and I have to use all these functions and I cannot add or remove them! I read couple of other ways to count and display the numbers but unfortunately the template was given...
#include <iostream>
#include <iomanip>
#include <string>
#include <vector>
using namespace std;
// FUNCTION PROTOTYPES GO HERE:
void init_vectors(vector<char> & vowels, vector<int> & frequencies);
string read_text(const string & prompt);
bool is_alphabetic(const char character);
void create_list(const string & str_text, vector<char> & vec_text);
bool is_member(const vector<char> & list, char character);
int find_index(const vector<char> & list, char character);
int compute_vowel_freqs(const vector<char> & text, const vector<char> & vowels, vector<int> & freqs);
void display_characters(const vector<char> & characters, const int colwidth);
void display_freqs(const vector<int> & freqs, const int colwidth);
int main()
{
vector<char> vowels;
vector<int> freqs;
string input;
vector<char> text;
int consonants(0);
const int COLUMNWIDTH = 2;
init_vectors(vowels, freqs);
input=read_text("Enter your text: ");
create_list(input, text);
compute_vowel_freqs(text, vowels, freqs);
display_characters(vowels, COLUMNWIDTH);
display_freqs(freqs, COLUMNWIDTH);
consonants = compute_vowel_freqs(text, vowels, freqs);
cout<<"There are "<< consonants<< " consonants."<<endl;
return 0;
}
void init_vectors(vector<char> & vowels, vector<int> & frequencies)
{
for (int i(0); i<6; i++) //i is loop variable
{
frequencies.push_back(0);
}
vowels.push_back('a');
vowels.push_back('e');
vowels.push_back('i');
vowels.push_back('o');
vowels.push_back('u');
vowels.push_back('y');
}
string read_text(const string & prompt)
{
string phrase;
cout<<prompt;
getline(cin,phrase);
return phrase;
}
bool is_alphabetic(const char character)
{
bool alphabet;
if ((character > 'a' && character < 'z')||(character > 'A' && character < 'Z'))
{
alphabet = true;
}
return alphabet;
}
void create_list(const string & str_text, vector<char> & vec_text)
{
for( int i = 0 ; i < str_text.length() ; i++)
{
if(is_alphabetic(str_text[i]))
vec_text.push_back(str_text[i]);
}
}
bool is_member(const vector<char> & list, char character)
{
bool vowel;
for (int i(0); i<list.size(); i++)
{
if (character == list[i])
{
vowel=true;
}
}
return vowel;
}
int find_index(const vector<char> & list, char character)
{
int index = -1;
for(int i=0; i<list.size(); i++)
{
if(character == list[i])
{
index = i;
break;
}
}
return index;
}
int compute_vowel_freqs(const vector<char> & text, const vector<char> & vowels, vector<int> & freqs)
{
int num_cons(0);
for(int i = 0 ; i < text.size() ; i++)
{
int index;
if(is_member(vowels, text[i]))
{
index = find_index(vowels , tolower(text[i]));
freqs[index]++;
}
else
num_cons++;
}
return num_cons;
}
void display_characters(const vector<char> & characters, const int colwidth)
{
for(int i=0; i<characters.size(); i++)
{
cout<<setw(colwidth)<<characters[i];
if((i+1)<characters.size())
{
cout<<",";
}
}
cout<<endl;
return;
}
void display_freqs(const vector<int> & freqs, const int colwidth)
{
for(int i=0; i<freqs.size(); i++)
{
cout<<setw(colwidth)<<freqs[i];
if((i+1)<freqs.size())
cout<<",";
}
cout<<endl;
return;
}

Answer 1

If you write hundreds of lines of code before you test any of it, you're bound to fail. Start small and simple, add complexity a little at a time, test at every step, and never add to code that doesn't work.
You should have tested these functions one by one as you wrote them. Here's the first problem:
bool is_alphabetic(const char character)
{
bool alphabet;
if ((character > 'a' && character < 'z')||(character > 'A' && character < 'Z'))
{
alphabet = true;
}
return false;
}
This always returns false, so nothing is recognized as text.
EDIT:
Second problem: is_member has exactly the same bug, with the same solution.
EDIT:
Third problem: I failed to notice that in this line in is_alphabetic:
if ((character > 'a' && character < 'z')||(character > 'A' && character < 'Z'))
You're using '>' and '<' when you should use ">=" and "<=". According to this function, 'a' and 'z' are not letters.
Look, you're still trying to test and fix this program as a whole. You must test it piecemeal. Pick a place in main and print out every variable that should have been assigned a value by then. This function may be useful:
void printVector(const vector<char> &V)
{
for(vector<char>::const_iterator citr=V.begin(); citr!=V.end(); ++citr)
cout << *citr;
cout << endl;
}
Then inspect the results. If a variable doesn't contain what it should, then something above that point is misbehaving. Trace the problem back to a function where good things go in but something bad comes out. Fix that, then look at the output again. I can't emphasize this enough: don't try to fix everything at once.

Answer 2

Your is_member is always false, so no char is vowel. And it results in 0 count.
bool is_member(const vector<char> & list, char character)
{
bool vowel = false; # this fix is not obligatory, I just made code look clearer
for (int i(0); i<list.size(); i++)
{
if (character == list[i])
{
vowel=true;
}
}
return vowel; # this should be fixed
}
By the way, the same issue is in the function 'is_alphabetic'. It is always false.