Biggest and smallest of four integers (No arrays, no functions, fewest 'if' statements)

Question

You see, I\'ve self-taught myself C++ (not completely, I\'m still procrastinating -_-). So, now I started university and they\'re teaching C and they made us do a program of

Answer 1

As per the OP's condition

But seeing that all we've covered in class for now are loops and decision statements. Is there a more elegant way of doing this? One which uses fewer ifs?

Only one if and one else if statement and one for loop can do this task. Simple and short!

#include 

int main()
{
    int num, max, min;

    printf ("Enter four numbers: ");
    scanf ("%d", &num);
    max = min = num;

    for (int i = 0; i < 3; i++)
    { 
        scanf ("%d", &num);
        if (max < num)
            max = num;
        else if (min > num)
            min = num;
    }

    printf ("The smallest and largest of given four numbers are %d and %d respectively.\n", min,  max);
    return 0;
}