Creating Snack Stand Receipts in C is a practical project for learners who know C basics and want to build a useful terminal program. You will help a snack stand keep every approved purchase and produce a complete text receipt, with unit prices, line subtotals and a total calculated in integer cents.
Two Guided Labs take you from a working one-item sample to separate purchase records, then to bounded input validation and capacity checks. An independent Challenge transfers those methods to the Evening Bites catalog, including different products with the same name, a free item and repeated purchases. Each unit provides its own files; no previous lab's files or running program are needed.
What You Will Learn
- Use small C structs and arrays to keep product identities and separate purchases in order.
- Calculate prices, subtotals and totals in integer cents and display two decimal places.
- Validate complete decimal text with strtol, including conversion overflow, trailing garbage and business bounds.
- Check quantity and capacity before changing the basket, preserving approved lines after rejection.
- Save and read a complete receipt, and distinguish checkout from cancellation at end of input.
Who This Course Is For
This course is for C learners ready to combine introductory language skills into a small application. C Programming for Beginners provides a suitable foundation.
Prerequisites: C variables, conditions, loops, arrays and functions, plus basic terminal commands and directory navigation. The Guided Labs introduce structs, terminated character strings, the required addresses and output parameters, and strtol before using them. Prior pointer expertise is not required.
Learning environment: LabEx provides a C compiler, prepared source files and a Workspace terminal in your browser. No local installation is needed. Program prompts, source code and receipt output remain in English.
Frequently Asked Questions
What will I deliver?
You will keep compilable C source, a working executable and an actual receipt file. The receipt preserves every approved purchase in order, including repeated purchases, with its product ID, name, quantity, unit price and subtotal, followed by the complete total.
Do I need dynamic memory or file-parsing experience?
No. The project uses fixed-size records and bounded text input. Catalog definitions and the input driver are provided. You implement record handling, validation and receipt output; general CSV parsing and dynamic allocation are outside the course.
Is this a real payment system?
No. It is a synthetic snack-counter exercise limited to six purchase lines and quantities from 1 to 20. It does not process payments or taxes. The command done completes checkout, while end-of-file cancels without producing a completed receipt or saving an unfinished transaction.
