# taslakian_patil — Project

Book Tracker System:

Project Overview: 

The Book Tracker System is a command-line application developed in the C programming language.
Its purpose is to help users manage and organize their reading activities efficiently.

The system allows users to:
- store book information
- track reading progress
- update reading status
- rate books
- search and organize their collection

This project demonstrates the use of fundamental programming concepts to build a complete and functional system.

Objectives:

The main objectives of this project are:

- To design a structured data system using struct
- To implement a menu-driven application using loops and conditionals
- To manage collections of data using arrays 
- To apply file handling for president storage
- To provide a simple but effective user interface in the terminal

Features:

Book Management:
* Add new books with:
- Title
- Author
- Genre
- Total number of pages
* Automatically initializes:
- Current page = 0
- Status = "Want to Read"
- Rating = none

Reading Progress Tracking:
- Update the current page of a book
- Allows users to track how much they have read

Status Management:
Each book has a reading status:
- 0 -> Want to Read
- 1 -> Reading
- 2 -> Finished
Users can update the status at any time.

Rating System:
- Users can rate books from 1 to 5
- Input validation ensures only valid ratings are accepted

Search Functionality
* Search books by:
- Title
- Author
* Uses substring matching (strstr) for flexible searching

Filtering:
- Filter books based on reading status
- Helps users view specific categories (e.g., only finished books)

Sorting:
- Books can be sorted by rating (descending)
- Implemented using a simple sorting algorithm (bubble sort)

Statistics:
The system provides:
- Total number of finished books
- Average rating of all books

File Handling (Persistence)
- Save all book data to a file (books.txt)
- Load data when the program starts
- Ensures data is not lost after exiting program

Programming Concepts Used:
This project demonstrates the following core concepts:
* Structures (struct):
- Used to model real-world entities (books)
* Arrays:
- Store multiple books efficiently
* Functions:
- Modular design (each feature has its own function)
* Loops (while, for)
- Used for menu system and iteration
* Conditional Statements (if, switch):
- Control program flow
* File Handling:
- fopen, fprintf, fscanf, fclose
* String Handling:
- strstr for searching

Program Structure:
The program is divided into logical components:
* Data Structure:
- struct Book holds all information about each book
* Functional Modules:
- addBook() -> add new books
- showBook() -> display all books
- updateProgress() -> update reading progress
- changeStatus() -> update reading status
- rateBook() -> assign rating
- searchBook() -> search by title/author
- filterBooks() -> filter  by status
- sortBooks() -> sort by rating
- showStats() -> display statistics
- saveToFile() / loadFromFile() -> file operations
* Main Loop:
- A while  loop controls the menu system and keeps the program running

Compilation and Execution:
* Compile the program:
gcc project.c -o project

* Run the program:
./project

File Format:
- The program stores data in: books.txt
- Each book is stored in one line using structured format

Design Choices:
- A command-line interface was chosen because C does not provide built-in graphical UI support
- A fixed-size array is used for simplicity and clarity
- A modular approach improves readability and maintainability
- A simple file format ensures easy reading and writing of data

Limitations:
- Maximum number of books is limited (MAX = 100)
- No graphical user interface (terminal only)
- Basic input validation (can be improved further)
- Sorting is limited to rating only

Future Improvements
- Implement dynamic memory allocation (remove fixed limit)
- Add delete/edit book features
- Improve sorting (multiple criteria)
- Add filtering by genre
- Create a graphical interface (GUI)
- Improve input validation and error handling

Author:
Patil Taslakian

Conclusion:
This project demonstrates how core C programming concepts can be combined to build a practical application. 
It highlights the importance of structured design, modular programming, and user interaction in software development.