How to get customized bytes from /dev/urandom? - c

I am working on a program that finds partial collision in Bitcoin addresses.
I have obtained source code for urandom and don't see where to start.
So I want to get random bytes from /dev/urandom of length 32 in total (including the masking 0s) because my program expects 256 bit but masked with zeros at the beginning when converted to hex.
The hex output would be like this
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000002d4
Notice the 0s before the actual Hex value( that's what I am calling a mask), in python it is needed by many libraries to get Bitcoin address.
I am struggling with the following code (not from random.c), now I think modifying urandom itself could be more helpful.
static bool init_rand(void *data, size_t size)
{
FILE *stream = fopen("/dev/urandom", "r");
if (stream == NULL)
return false;
bool ok = (fread(data, sizeof(uint8_t), size, stream) == size);
fclose(stream);
return ok;
}
static bool init_rand(void *data, size_t size)
{
size_t size0 = size / sizeof(unsigned) + 1;
assert(size0 * sizeof(unsigned) >= size);
unsigned data0[size0];
for (size_t i = 0; i < size0; i++)
{
int err = rand_s(data0 + i);
if (err != 0)
return false;
}
memcpy(data, data0, size);
return true;
}
static struct seed *make_seed(void)
{
struct seed *seed = (struct seed *)malloc(sizeof(struct seed));
assert(seed != NULL);
seed->counter = 0;
if (!init_rand(seed, sizeof(struct seed)))
{
fprintf(stderr, "error: failed to init random seed\n");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
if (seed->counter == 0) // Sanity check...
{
fprintf(stderr, "error: random seed initialization failed\n");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
return seed;
}
For Full code please see Pairgen Here.
Is it possible to modify random.c from Linux kernel drivers to produce bytes already masked with 0s?

You are confusing printed representation ("the hex output") with an actual value.
0x2d4 and 0x000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000002d4 are the exact same value.
"0x2d4" and "0x000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000002d4" are two very different strings.
If you want to format a string - use formating operations (like sprintf).
Looking at your comments, it appears that you're misunderstanding the concept of 0 and what "hex" means.
Hex stands for Hexadecimal, meaning the interpretation of the value in the base-16 system. It is used to represent the value (for readability), it doesn't affect the value itself. For example, 0xA is the base-16 representation of the decimal value 10. These are the same value, written differently.
Similarly, leading zeroes don't change the value. If you see 0x24b in your debugger, and the variable holding it is 32 bits, then the actual memory representation would be 0x0000024b. You can control how the value is printed using the printf formatting flags.
Last but not least, 0 is a valid value. Every bit can be either 0 or 1, and you can have a random generator provide you an absolutely valid randomly generated value which is 0 for all the 256 bits you asked for. While highly unlikely, it is not impossible. Much more likely is that some of the 256 bits would be 0, and it is entirely possible that some of them would be the highest bits, leading your 256 bit value to be misinterpreted as less than 256 bits if you discard these high bits (as printf does by default).
When used for cryptographic purposes, you should not manipulate the values you read from urandom as this would most likely introduce vulnerabilities and is probably not what you really want to do.

Related

Writing an array of integers into a file using C [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
How to write an array to file in C
(3 answers)
Closed 3 years ago.
I would like to write an array of integers into a file using C. However, I get some gibberish in the file.
The code is about a function that converts a decimal number into binary then stores it into a file.
int * decToBinary(int n) //function to transform the decimal numbers to binary
{
static int binaryNum[16]; // array to store binary number
int i = 0; // counter for binary array
while (n > 0) {
binaryNum[i] = n % 2; // storing remainder in binary array
n = n / 2;
i++;
}
return binaryNum;
}
int main()
{
FILE *infile;
int i;
int *p;
int decimal= 2000;
int written = 0;
infile = fopen("myfile.txt","w");
p = decToBinary(decimal);
written = fwrite(p,sizeof(int),sizeof(p),infile) ;
if (written == 0) {
printf("Error during writing to file !");
}
fclose(infile);
return 0;
}
This is what I get in my file:
This is what I get when I write a text as a test, it does not have any problem with the text, but it has with the array.
char str[] = "test text --------- \n";
infile = fopen("myfile.txt","wb");
p=decToBinary(decimal);
fwrite(str , 1 , sizeof(str) , infile);
written = fwrite(p,sizeof(int),sizeof(p),infile) ;
And this is what I get when I make this change:
written = fwrite(&p,sizeof(int),sizeof(p),infile) ;
First, be aware that there are two interpretations for 'binary':
int n = 1012;
fwrite(&n, sizeof(n), 1, file);
This writes out the data just as is; as it is represented in form of bits, output is considered "binary" (a binary file).
Your question and the code you provided, though, rather imply that you actually want to have a file containing the numbers in binary text format, i. e. 7 being represented by string "111".
Then first, be aware that 0 and 1 do not represent the characters '0' and '1' in most, if not all, encodings. Assuming ASCII or compatible, '0' is represented by value 48, '1' by value 49. As C standard requires digits [0..9] being consecutive characters (this does not apply for any other characters!), you can safely do:
binaryNum[i] = '0' + n % 2;
Be aware that, as you want strings, you chose the bad data type, you need a character array:
static char binaryNum[X];
X??? We need to talk about required size!
If we create strings, we need to null-terminate them. So we need place for the terminating 0-character (really value 0, not 48 for character '0'), so we need at least one character more.
Currently, due to the comparison n > 0, you consider negative values as equal to 0. Do you really intend this? If so, you might consider unsigned int as data type, otherwise, leave some comment, then I'll cover handling negative values later on.
With restriction to positive values, 16 + 1 as size is fine, assuming int has 32 bit on your system! However, C standard allows int to be smaller or larger as well. If you want to be portable, use CHAR_BIT * sizeof(int) / 2 (CHAR_BIT is defined in <limits.h>; drop division by 2 if you switch to unsigned int).
There is one special case not covered: integer value 0 won't enter the loop at all, thus you'd end up with an empty string, so catch this case separately:
if(n == 0)
{
binaryNum[i++] = '0';
}
else
{
while (n > 0) { /.../ }
}
// now the important part:
// terminate the string!
binaryNum[i] = 0;
Now you can simply do (assuming you changed p to char*):
written = fprintf(file, "%s\n", p);
// ^^ only if you want to have each number on separate line
// you can replace with space or drop it entirely, if desired
Be aware that the algorithm, as is, prints out least significant bits first! You might want to have it inverse, then you'd either yet have to revert the string or (which I would prefer) start with writing the terminating 0 to the end and then fill up the digits one by one towards front - returning a pointer to the last digit (the most significant one) written instead of always the start of the buffer.
One word about your original version:
written = fwrite(p, sizeof(int), sizeof(p), infile);
sizeof(p) gives you the size of a pointer; this one is system dependent, but will always be the same on the same system, most likely 8 on yours (if modern 64-bit hardware), possibly 4 (on typical 32-bit CPU), other values on less common systems are possible as well. You'd need to return the number of characters printed separately (and no, sizeof(binaryNum) won't be suitable as it always returns 17, assuming 32-bit int and all changes shown above applied).
You probably want this:
...
int main()
{
int decimal = 2000;
int *p = decToBinary(decimal);
for (int i = 0; i< 16; i++)
{
printf("%d", p[i]);
}
return 0;
}
The output goes to the terminal instead into a file.
For writing into a file use fopen as in your code, and use fprintf instead of printf.
Concerning the decToBinary there is still room for improvement, especially you could transform the number directly into an array of char containing only chars 0 and 1 using the << and & operators.

Passing a subset of an array to linux spi driver

I have a problem that I'm having difficulty solving.
I have a union that contains a buffer with a struct mapping the bits of the buffer. Something along the lines of (it is pragma packed of course):
union
uint32 buf[512]
struct
uint8_t pad[256];
uint32_t data[256];
the buf[] part is intended to be passed to the Linux spi driver as a Receive buffer. The issue I'm having is, depending on my transmits, the size of the padding I receive back is variable, and because of this it isn't straight forward to access using the union.
What i need to do is to be able to pass buf[] at a specific index to the spi driver, I.E the Rx buffer begins at buf[128] instead of buf[0]. This isn't always equal, so i have an equation that tells me where i need the start point to be which is &(buf[0]+padmax-padsize]) which should result in a value between buf[0] and buf[256]. However, the issue is the spi driver expects the argument of the transfer buffer to contain a pointer to a buffer, and passing it the straight address isn't giving me what i want.
I have also tried assigning a pointer to the address of the above equation and passing that to the rxbuffer part of the spi struct and it again doesn't give me what i want.
Is it possible to create an array that is a subset of another array, starting at a specified address of the outer array? I think this may solve my problem but I'm also afraid of the memory implications of that
The reason is most likely that you're calculating the address in 32-bit units (in units of buf elements), not bytes as you expect, based on the arithmetic.
Let's simplify the situation, and say the structure is just
#define MAX_PAD 256
#define MAX_DATA 256
struct spi_data {
uint8_t pad[MAX_PAD];
uint32_t data[MAX_DATA];
};
and that you want to implement a function similar to
size_t spi_recv(int fd, struct spi_data *ref, size_t pad, size_t data)
where
fd is the file descriptor to read() from
ref is a pointer to the struct spi_data to be used
pad is the number of padding entries filled at the end of the ref->pad[] array
data is the number of entries filled at the beginning of the ref->data[] array
the return value is the number of data entries received (completely filled)
Consider the following (argument checks for fd == -1, ref == NULL, pad > MAX_PAD, data > MAX_DATA omitted for simplicity):
size_t spi_recv(int fd, struct spi_data *ref, size_t pad, size_t data)
{
ssize_t n;
n = read(fd, &ref->pad[sizeof ref->pad / sizeof ref->pad[0] - pad],
pad * sizeof ref->pad[0] + data * sizeof ref->data[0]);
if (n == -1) {
/* Error; errno already set */
return 0;
} else
if (n < 0) {
/* Should never occur, but let's be paranoid */
errno = EIO;
return 0;
} else
if (n < pad * sizeof ref->pad[0]) {
/* Only partial padding received */
errno = 0;
return 0;
} else {
/* Zero or more data words received */
errno = 0;
return (n - pad * sizeof ref->pad[0]) / sizeof ref->data[0];
}
}
The pointer to the last pad elements of padding is
&ref->pad[sizeof ref->pad / sizeof ref->pad[0] - pad])
which is essentially equivalent to &(ref->pad[MAX_PAD - pad]), except that instead of the MAX_PAD macro, we use (sizeof ref->pad)/(sizeof ref->pad[0]) to evaluate the number of members declared for the ref->pad[] array. (This only works if ref->pad is an array; it does not work if it is a pointer.)
As usual, read() takes the number of bytes -- not elements of ref->pad or ref->data -- as a parameter, so we need to multiply the element counts by their respective element sizes in bytes; thus, the number of bytes in pad elements of padding and data elements of data is pad * sizeof ref->pad[0] + data * sizeof ref->data[0].
Since the function returns the number of complete data words received, the number of padding bytes must be subtracted from the return value, then divided by the data element type (integer division rounding down), to get the number of complete data words.
I don't think the above interface is optimal, however. I particularly dislike the possibility of the SPI transfer ending with a partial word; the above interface does not let the caller detect such a situation reliably.
If you use spidev, the ioctl() interface would be much better to use. For one, you could use SPI_IOC_MESSAGE(2) to read the padding and the data into separate buffers, or even SPI_IOC_MESSAGE(3) to write a command, followed by a read to the padding buffer and another to the data buffer. The Linux-Sunxi Wiki page has a pretty simple example of this kind of usage here, except that it uses single reads instead of reading padding into a separate buffer. However, it should be quite simple to extend the examples to do that.

Understanding And Getting info of Bitmap in C

I am having a hard time understanding and parsing the info data present in a bitmap image. To better understand I read the following tutorial, Raster Data.
Now, The code present there is as follows, (Greyscale 8bit color value)
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <math.h>
/*-------STRUCTURES---------*/
typedef struct {int rows; int cols; unsigned char* data;} sImage;
/*-------PROTOTYPES---------*/
long getImageInfo(FILE*, long, int);
int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
FILE *bmpInput, *rasterOutput;
sImage originalImage;
unsigned char someChar;
unsigned char* pChar;
int nColors; /* BMP number of colors */
long fileSize; /* BMP file size */
int vectorSize; /* BMP vector size */
int r, c; /* r = rows, c = cols */
/* initialize pointer */
someChar = '0';
pChar = &someChar;
if(argc < 2)
{
printf("Usage: %s bmpInput.bmp\n", argv[0]);
//end the execution
exit(0);
}
printf("Reading filename %s\n", argv[1]);
/*--------READ INPUT FILE------------*/
bmpInput = fopen(argv[1], "rb");
//fseek(bmpInput, 0L, SEEK_END);
/*--------DECLARE OUTPUT TEXT FILE--------*/
rasterOutput = fopen("data.txt", "w");
/*--------GET BMP DATA---------------*/
originalImage.cols = (int)getImageInfo(bmpInput, 18, 4);
originalImage.rows = (int)getImageInfo(bmpInput, 22, 4);
fileSize = getImageInfo(bmpInput, 2, 4);
nColors = getImageInfo(bmpInput, 46, 4);
vectorSize = fileSize - (14 + 40 + 4*nColors);
/*-------PRINT DATA TO SCREEN-------------*/
printf("Width: %d\n", originalImage.cols);
printf("Height: %d\n", originalImage.rows);
printf("File size: %ld\n", fileSize);
printf("# Colors: %d\n", nColors);
printf("Vector size: %d\n", vectorSize);
/*----START AT BEGINNING OF RASTER DATA-----*/
fseek(bmpInput, (54 + 4*nColors), SEEK_SET);
/*----------READ RASTER DATA----------*/
for(r=0; r<=originalImage.rows - 1; r++)
{
for(c=0; c<=originalImage.cols - 1; c++)
{
/*-----read data and print in (row,column) form----*/
fread(pChar, sizeof(char), 1, bmpInput);
fprintf(rasterOutput, "(%d, %d) = %d\n", r, c, *pChar);
}
}
fclose(bmpInput);
fclose(rasterOutput);
}
/*----------GET IMAGE INFO SUBPROGRAM--------------*/
long getImageInfo(FILE* inputFile, long offset, int numberOfChars)
{
unsigned char *ptrC;
long value = 0L;
unsigned char dummy;
int i;
dummy = '0';
ptrC = &dummy;
fseek(inputFile, offset, SEEK_SET);
for(i=1; i<=numberOfChars; i++)
{
fread(ptrC, sizeof(char), 1, inputFile);
/* calculate value based on adding bytes */
value = (long)(value + (*ptrC)*(pow(256, (i-1))));
}
return(value);
} /* end of getImageInfo */
What I am not understanding:-
I am unable the understand the 'GET IMAGE INTOSUBPROGRAM' part where the code is trying to get the image infos like no of rows,columns, etc. Why are these infos stored over 4 bytes and what is the use of the value = (long)(value + (*ptrC)*(pow(256, (i-1)))); instruction.
Why there unsigned char dummy ='0' is created and then ptrC =&dummy is assigned?
Why can't we just get the no of rows in an image by just reading 1 byte of data like getting the Greyscale value at a particular row and column.
Why are we using unsigned char to store the byte, isn't there some other data type or int or long we can use effectively here?
Please help me understand these doubts(confusions!!?) I am having and forgive me if they sound noobish.
Thank you.
I would say the tutorial is quite bad in some ways and your problems to understand it are not always due to being a beginner.
I am unable the understand the 'GET IMAGE INTOSUBPROGRAM' part where the code is trying to get the image infos like no of rows,columns, etc. Why are these infos stored over 4 bytes and what is the use of the value = (long)(value + (ptrC)(pow(256, (i-1)))); instruction.
The reason to store over 4 bytes is to allow the image to be sized between 0 and 2^32-1 high and wide. If we used just one byte, we could only have images sized 0..255 and with 2 bytes 0..65535.
The strange value = (long)(value + (*ptrC)*(pow(256, (i-1)))); is something I've never seen before. It's used to convert bytes into a long so that it would work with any endianness. The idea is to use powers of 256 to set the *ptrC to the value, i.e. multiplying first byte with 1, next with 256, next with 65536 etc.
A much more readable way would be to use shifts, e.g. value = value + ((long)(*ptrC) << 8*(i-1));. Or even better would be to read bytes from the highest one to lower and use value = value << 8 + *ptrC;. In my eyes a lot better, but when the bytes come in a different order, is not always so simple.
A simple rewrite to be much easier to understand would be
long getImageInfo(FILE* inputFile, long offset, int numberOfChars)
{
unsigned char ptrC;
long value = 0L;
int i;
fseek(inputFile, offset, SEEK_SET);
for(i=0; i<numberOfChars; i++) // Start with zero to make the code simpler
{
fread(&ptrC, 1, 1, inputFile); // sizeof(char) is always 1, no need to use it
value = value + ((long)ptrC << 8*i); // Shifts are a lot simpler to look at and understand what's the meaning
}
return value; // Parentheses would make it look like a function
}
Why there unsigned char dummy ='0' is created and then ptrC =&dummy is assigned?
This is also pointless. They could've just used unsigned char ptrC and then used &ptrC instead of ptrC and ptrC instead of *ptrC. This would've also shown that it is just a normal static variable.
Why can't we just get the no of rows in an image by just reading 1 byte of data like getting the Greyscale value at a particular row and column.
What if the image is 3475 rows high? One byte isn't enough. So it needs more bytes. The way of reading is just a bit complicated.
Why are we using unsigned char to store the byte, isn't there some other data type or int or long we can use effectively here?
Unsigned char is exactly one byte long. Why would we use any other type for storing a byte then?
(4) The data of binary files is made up of bytes, which in C are represented by unsigned char. Because that's a long word to type, it is sometimes typedeffed to byte or uchar. A good standard-compliant way to define bytes is to use uint8_t from <stdint.h>.
(3) I'm not quite sure what you're trying to get at, but the first bytes - usually 54, but there are othzer BMF formats - of a BMP file make up the header, which contains information on colour depth, width and height of an image. The bytes after byte 54 store the raw data. I haven't tested yopur code, but there might be an issue with padding, because the data for each row must be padded to make a raw-data size that is divisible by 4.
(2) There isn't really a point in defining an extra pointer here. You could just as well fread(&dummy, ...) directly.
(1) Ugh. This function reads a multi-byte value from the file at position offset in the file. The file is made up of bytes, but several bytes can form other data types. For example, a 4-byte unsigned word is made up of:
uint8_t raw[4];
uint32_t x;
x = raw[0] + raw[1]*256 + raw[2]*256*256 + raw[3]*256*256*256;
on a PC, which uses Little Endian data.
That example also shows where the pow(256, i) comes in. Using the pow function here is not a good idea, because it is meant to be used with floating-point numbers. Even the multiplication by 256 is not very idiomatic. Usually, we construct values by byte shifting, where a multiplication by 2 is a left-shift by 1 and hence a multiplication by 256 is a left-shift by 8. Similarly, the additions above add non-overlapping ranges and are usually represented as a bitwise OR, |:
x = raw[0] | (raw[1]<<8) | (raw[2]<<16) | (raw[3]<<24);
The function accesses the file by re-positioning the file pointer (and leaving it at the new position). That's not very effective. It would be better to read the header as an 54-byte array and accessing the array directly.
The code is old and clumsy. Seeing something like:
for(r=0; r<=originalImage.rows - 1; r++)
is already enough for me not to trust it. I'm sure you can find a better example of reading greyscale images from BMP. You could even write your own and start with the Wikipedia article on the BMP format.

searching an integer from a text file in c

I have a simulation program written in c and I need to create random numbers and write them to a txt file. Program only stops
- when a random number already generated is generated again or
- 1 billion random number are generated (no repetition)
My problem is that I could not search the generated long int random number in the txt file!
Text file format is:
9875
764
19827
2332
...
Any help is appreciated..
`
FILE * out;
int checkNumber(long int num){
char line[512];
long int number;
int result=0;
if((out = fopen("out.txt","r"))==NULL){
result= 1;
}
char buf[10];
itoa(num, buf, 10);
while(fgets(line, 512, out) != NULL)
{
if((strstr(line,buf)) != NULL){
result = 0;
}
}
if(out) {
fclose(out);
}
return result;
}
int main(){
int seed;
long int nRNs=0;
long int numberGenerated;
out = fopen ("out.txt","w");
nRNs=0;
seed = 12345;
srand (seed);
fprintf(out,"%d\n",numberGenerated);
while( nRNs != 1000000000 )
{
numberGenerated = rand();
nRNs++;
if(checkNumber(numberGenerated)==0){
fclose(out); break; system("pause");
}
else{
fprintf(out,"%d\n",numberGenerated);
}
}
fclose(out);
}`
If the text file only contains randomly generated numbers separated by space, then you need strtok() function(google its usage) and throw it into the binary tree structure as mentioned by #jacekmigacz. But in any circumstance, you will have to search the whole file once at least. Then ftell() the value to get the location you've searched for in the file. When another number is generated you can use fseek() to get the latest number. Remember to get the data line by line with fgets()
Take care of the memory requirements and use malloc() judiciously
Try with tree (data structure).
Searching linearly through the text file every time is gonna take forever with so many numbers. You could hold every number generated so far sorted in a data structure so that you can do a binary search for a duplicate. This is going to need a lot of RAM though. For 1 billion integers that's already 4GB on a system with 32-bit integers, and you'll need several more for the data structure overhead. My estimate is around 16GB in the worst case scenario (where you actually get to 1 billion unique integers.)
If you don't have a memory monster machine, you should instead write the data structure to a binary file and do the binary search there. Though that's still gonna be quite slow.
This may work or you can approach like this : (slow but will work)
int new_rand = rand();
static int couter = 0;
FILE *fptr = fopen("txt","a+");
int i;
char c,buf[10];
while((c=getc(fptr))!=EOF)
{
buf[j++]=c;
if(c == ' ')
{
buf[--j]='\0';
i=atoi(buf);
if(i == new_rand)
return;
j=0;
}
if(counter < 1000000)
{
fwrite(&new_rand, 4, 1, fptr);
counter++;
}
Don't open and scan your file to checkNumber(). You'll be waiting forever.
Instead, keep your generated numbers in memory using a bit set data structure and refer to that.
Your bit set will need to be large enough to indicate every 32-bit integer, so it'll consume 2^32 / 8 bytes (or 512MiB) of memory. This may seem like a lot but it's much smaller than 32-bit * 1,000,000,000 (4GB). Also, both checking and updating will be done in constant time.
Edit: The wikipedia link doesn't do much to explain how to code one, so here's a rough sample: (There're faster ways of writing this, e.g.: using bit shifts instead of division, but this should be easier to understand.)
int checkNumberOrUpdate(char *bitSet, long int num){
char b = 1 << (num % 8);
char w = num / 8;
if (bitSet[w] & ~b) {
return 1;
}
bitSet[w] |= b;
return 0;
}
Note, bitSet needs to be calloc()d to the right size from your main function.

Reallocing a char*

I am trying to do a function that will store in a char array some information to print on it:
int offset = 0;
size_t size = 1;
char *data = NULL;
data = malloc(sizeof(char));
void create(t_var *var){
size_t sizeLine = sizeof(char)*(strlen(var->nombre)+2)+sizeof(int);
size = size + sizeLine;
realloc(data, size);
sprintf(data+offset,"%s=%d\n",var->name,var->value);
offset=strlen(data);
}
list_iterate(aList, (void *)create);
t_var is a struct that has two fields: name (char*) and value (int).
What's wrong with this code? When running it on Valgrind it complains about the realloc and sprintf.
Without knowing the specific valgrind errors, the standout one is:
realloc(data, size); should be data = realloc(data, size);
I'm sorry to say that, but almost EVERYTHING is wrong with your code.
First, incomplete code.
You say your t_var type has two members, name and value.
But your code refers to a nombre member. Did you forget to mention it or did you forget to rename it when publishing the code?
Second, misused sizeof.
You use a sizeof(int) expression. Are you aware what you actually do here?!
Apparently you try to calculate the length of printed int value. Alas, operator sizeof retrieves the information about a number of bytes the argument occupies in memory. So, for example, for 32-bits integer the result of sizeof(int) is 4 (32 bits fit in 4 bytes), but the maximum signed 32-bit integer value is power(2,31)-1, that is 2147483647 in decimal. TEN digits, not four.
You can use (int)(2.41 * sizeof(any_unsigned_int_type)+1) to determine a number of characters you may need to print the value of any_unsigned_int_type. Add one for a preceding minus in a case of signed integer types.
The magic constant 2.41 is a decimal logarithm of 256 (rounded up at the 3-rd decimal digi), thus it scales the length in bytes to a length in decimal digits.
If you prefer to avoid floating-point operations you may use another approximation 29/12=2.41666..., and compute (sizeof(any_unsigned_int_type)*29/12+1).
Third, sizeof(char).
You multiply the result of strlen by sizeof(char).
Not an error, actually, but completely useless, as sizeof(char) equals 1 by definition.
Fourth, realloc.
As others already explained, you must store the return value:
data = realloc(data, size);
Otherwise you risk you loose your re-allocated data AND you continue writing at the previous location, which may result in overwriting (so destroying) some other data on the heap.
Fifth, offset.
You use that value to determine the position to sprintf() at. However, after the print you substitute offset with a length of last printout instead of incrementing it. As a result consecutive sprintfs will overwrite previous output!
Do:
offset += strlen(data);
Sixth: strlen of sprintf.
You needn't call strlen here at all, as all functions of printf family return the number of characters printed. You can just use that:
int outputlen = sprintf(data+offset, "%s=%d\n", var->name, var->value);
offset += outputlen;
Seventh: realloc. Seriously.
This is quite costly function. It may need to do internal malloc for a new size of data, copy your data into a new place and free the old block. Why do you force it? What impact will it have on your program if it needs to print five thousand strings some day...?
It is also quite dangerous. Really. Suppose you need to print 5,000 strings but there is room for 2,000 only. You will get a NULL pointer from realloc(). All the data printed to the point are still at the current data pointer, but what will you do next?
How can you tell list_iterate to stop iterating...?
How can you inform the routine above the list_iterate that the string is incomplete...?
There is no good answer. Luckily you needn't solve the problem — you can just avoid making it!
Solution.
Traverse your list first and calculate the size of buffer you need. Then allocate the buffer — just once! — and go on with filling it. There is just one place where the allocation may fail and you can simply not go into the problem if that ever happens:
int totaloutputlength = 0;
char *outputbuffer = NULL;
char *currentposition = NULL;
void add_var_length(t_var *var){
const int numberlength = sizeof(var->value)*29/12 + 1;
totaloutputlength += strlen(var->name) + 2 + numberlength;
}
void calculate_all_vars_length(t_list *aList){
totaloutputlength = 0;
list_iterate(aList, (void *)add_var_length);
}
void sprint_var_value(t_var *var){
int outputlen = sprintf(currentposition, "%s=%d\n", var->name, var->value);
currentposition += outputlen; // advance the printing position
}
int sprint_all_vars(t_list *aList){
calculate_all_vars_length(aList);
outputbuffer = malloc(totaloutputlength + 1); // +1 for terminating NUL char
// did allocation succeed?
if(outputbuffer == NULL) { // NO
// possibly print some error message...
// possibly terminate the program...
// or just return -1 to inform a caller something went wrong
return -1;
}
else { // YES
// set the initial printing position
currentposition = outputbuffer;
// go print all variables into the buffer
list_iterate(aList, (void *)sprint_var_value);
// return a 'success' status
return 0;
}
}

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