Can someone explain this

[adiktid]

Ok so I did the thing in the begginers excercises on this website. I got to the pancake one and I did the code right but I know knowing how to do it but not knowing why it works is as bad as not knowing how to do it. so here is the code

  #include "stdafx.h"
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string>
#include <iostream>
#include<stdlib.h>

using namespace std;


int main()
{
	int pcakes[10];
	int max = 0;

	for (int i = 0; i < 10; ++i){
		cout << "enter the pancake amount for person" << i + 1 << endl;
		cin >> pcakes[i];

		if (pcakes[i] > max)
		{
			max = pcakes[i];
		}
	
		
	}
	cout << "the max number is " << max << endl;
	
	system("pause");
	return 0;
}

the other libraries is there from other things..but my question is why does that work, it does not make sense to me , if pcakes[i] si greater then max then max = pcakes[i]. but wouldnt that mean that if pcakes is greater which it is if its above 0 then pcakes would be 0 since max is 0?

[adiktid]

Ok I am dumb, after asking it on here i see now, max becomes pcakes[i]. but my new question is...how does it know to give max the highest value? since there is 10 other values in pcakes?

[j3Rz8vqX]

The max variable is being defaulted to the lowest non negative value 0.

So in your case, if you entered a pancake with greater value than 0, it would assign that value to max.

If checks for true if (pcakes[i] > max)

max = pcakes[i]; assigns max the value of pancake, not the other way around; right side argument is assigned to left side argument.

[adiktid]

I see, so each number higher then the last is what max's new number is? thats hwo it gets the highest number in there?

[j3Rz8vqX]

Yes.

max will change if a number is higher than itself.

The next cycle would compare to the new max value; not zero.
Eventually leading to storing the highest number entered by the user.