Alphabetically sorting the words

Question

I m sorting words by comparing ascii of the 1st element of the words with another word. I have used structures to store and an array to store 5 words and then using sorting comparing asciis. Also I want it without using any character function. What wrong am I doing?

error the compilor is giving: invalid conversion from char to int, invalid array assignment, expected primary expression before int

#include <iostream>
#include <cctype>
#include <cstring>
using namespace std;


struct Words{
char name[20];
};

int main(){

Words words[5];


for(int i=0; i<5; i++){

    cout<<"Enter the name"<<endl;
    cin>>words[i].name;

}
int temp;
//sorting

for(int i=0; i<5; i++){
//ascii code

    for(int j=0; j<4; j++){
        if(words[j+1].(int)name[0]<words[j].(int)name[0]){
            temp=words[j].name;
            words[j].name=words[j+1].name;
            words[j+1].name=temp;
        }


    }
}

cout<<endl;
//output
for(int i=0; i<5; i++){

    cout<<words[i].name<<endl;


}

return 0;
}

Answer 1

This statement

    if(words[j+1].(int)name[0]<words[j].(int)name[0]){

is syntactically invalid. The correct statement will look the following way

    if( ( int )words[j+1].name[0]<( int )words[j].name[0]){

However there is no any sense to make such a record because (the C++ Standard)

The usual arithmetic conversions are performed on operands of arithmetic or enumeration type

On the other hand if type char behave as signed char and your array can contain characters with negative values then the sorting will be invalid. I advice to rewrite the statement the following way

    if( ( unsigned char )words[j+1].name[0]<( unsigned char )words[j].name[0]){

Also these statement are invalid

        temp=words[j].name;
        words[j].name=words[j+1].name;
        words[j+1].name=temp;

Arrays (variable temp shall be defined as char[20]) have no the assignment operator. Either use standard C function strcpy or define the arrays as std::array<char,20>

For example (you need include header

        strcpy( temp, words[j].name );
        strcpy( words[j].name, words[j+1].name );
        strcpy( words[j+1].name, temp );

Or ( you need include header )

struct Words{
 array<char, 20> name;
};

array<char, 20> temp;
            temp=words[j].name;
            words[j].name=words[j+1].name;
            words[j+1].name=temp;

Answer 2

In the line

    if(words[j+1].(int)name[0]<words[j].(int)name[0]){

you try to cast a member variable from char to int using the wrong syntax. You can't write the cast in between the member access dot and the member name. You have to write it in front of the whole expression to be cast:

    if((int)words[j+1].name[0]<(int)words[j].name[0]){

Also, you should consider what to do in case two words have the same first character but differ otherwise. If you'd use std::string you could simply compare those strings. And by the way, there is std::sort.

Answer 3

you should also change the type of temp from int to char, since name is a character variable (invalid conversion from char to int is due to this error)