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Inventory Data Structure

Inventory data structure is a makeover of a matrix data structure. Often we encounter tasks where we have keywords and their associated properties. Consider like we have 5 items and each item has associated 10 properties, we want to put them in a table and then perform some operations on it.

A matrix is too tedious for that and a hash table is too much. We need a simpler table to capture this data and give us a platform to do the operations. For this reason comes the inventory data structure.

Essentially, it’s a table with keywords and properties. It supports the operations like get all keywords, all properties, search, add new keyword etc. The functionalities are explained in detail in the sections ahead.

All this is part of release number 1.0. The definition is expected to evolve with more meaningful definition and operation with time. If you have suggestions or contributions to make it better and more meaningful, they are always welcome.

Design

The motive of inventory table is to hold the data with keywords and properties. So the design is intuitive. It’s a 3D string array where memory is dynamically allocated based on the number of keywords and properties. The idea is to provide the basic functionalities so that users can later develop the required either by using the existing functions or by building on the table available. Look out the manual for more.

Functionality

The design of the table incorporates the following properties:

Function:               add_key
Description:            reads the data from the file and loads the key and the details
                        into the inventory-table present in main memory
Input param:            NULL.
Return Type:            integer type
                        success status is returned if key is successfully added to inventory file
                        failure status otherwise

Function:               get_keys
Description:            loads all the keys in the character array
Input param:            NULL
Return Type:  	        pointer to character array
                        on success character array holding all keys
                        NULL otherwise
		
Function:               get_properties
Description:            loads all the properties in the string array
Input param:            NULL
Return Type:            character type
                        on success character array holding all properties 
                        NULL otherwise


Function:               get_key_properties
Description:            loads all the properties for the given index of key,
                        from inventory table in the supplied array 
Input param:            key's index number for which all its properties has to be loaded
Return Type:  	        pointer to character array
                        character array is returned holding all properties for given key
                        NULL otherwise


Function:               get_key_name
Description:            gets the name of the keyword at the specified location
Input param:            integer value which mentions the index
Return Type:  	        pointer to character array
                        returns the key if index exists
                        COUNT_EXCEED_ERROR otherwise


Function:               get_property_name
Description:            gets the name of the specification at the specified location
Input param:            integer value which mentions the index
Return Type:  	        pointer to character array 
                        returns the property if index exists
                        COUNT_EXCEED_ERROR otherwise


Function:               search_key
Description:            gets the index of the keyword to be searched
Input param:            character array which holds keyword to be searched
Return Type:  	        pointer to integer array
                        returns the keyword index if key exists
                        NULL value otherwise


Function:               search_property
Description:            gets the index of the property to be searched
Input param:            character array which holds property to be searched
Return Type:  	        point to integer array
                        returns the properties index if property exists
                        NULL value otherwise


Function:               search_any
Description:            searches for the given word in the entire table, for all the occurrences
                        returns indexes of all occurrences of word if search word exists,
                        returns -1 otherwise.
                        variable to hold indices will be supplied as input param
Input param:            character array, word to be searched and integer array
                        to hold the indexes of found locations
Return Type:  	        NULL


Function:               print
Description:            displays all the entries in inventory table
                        formatting might not look cleaner if the table size is large
Input param:            NULL
Return Type:  	        NULL

Below is the prototype of all the functions:

int add_key();
char ** get_keys();
char ** get_properties();
char ** get_key_properties(int);
char * get_key_name(int);
char * get_property_name(int);
int * search_key(char array[]);
int * search_property(char property[]);
void search_any(char c_array[], int i_array[100][2]);
void print();

The best way to understand is to run the supplied main file and learn the usage.

Note: A function print_formatted() is available in the source code version which can be used to print the inventory output clean and clear.