Time Machine - Computational Thinking 101 | Beginner

Continuing our so-called 'Zero-to-Hero' series on Computational programming, today we are going to make a 'real' TIME MACHINE.

Time Machine

Alright, this one is easy. Given a positive number which donates total seconds, we have to find total hours, minutes and seconds, and finally print them all in this format: hh:mm:ss.

Solution

1. As you've guessed, we need an integer variable to hold the seconds input from the user. Let's call it totalSeconds and scan it from the console right away.

int totalSeconds;
scanf(" %d", &totalSeconds);

1. Now, with a simple yet powerful algorithm, we can extract all the hours from totalSeconds. Just divide totalSeconds by 3600 (cuz 1h = 3600s).

In C language int / int is a floor division (see here).

Let's save the extract in a variable called hours!

int hours = totalSeconds / 3600; // since 1h = 3600s

1. Minutes! Simply apply module (%) to totalSeconds by 3600. This will give you the remainder seconds after hours are extracted. Reassign the result to totalSeconds and repeat Step #2 only changing divider into 60 (if you know what I mean ^^).

totalSeconds = totalSeconds % 3600; // this will remove all the hours
int minutes = totalSeconds / 60; // since 1m = 60s

1. Remaining seconds can be found, yes you guessed it!, by applying modulo operator on totalSeconds by 60 (think about it 🤔).

int seconds = totalSeconds % 60; // after we remove all the minutes, whatever is left are the remaining seconds

Let's print the result in a humanoid form!

printf("%02d:%02d:%02d\n", hours, minutes, seconds);
// 02 - give me at least 2 cell to print, and fill 0s in empty cells

Tadaaa, a time machine!

RUN the code live here:

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