Indexing Error With Dynamically Allocated Array - c

I am working on a HW assignment dealing with a dynamically allocated array that can handle different sized input files. My issue is that a pair of (null) values keep appearing tied to the word_alloc variable (changing it moves where in the output the (null) appears). How do I fix this?
int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
char str[80];
int word_alloc = 0;
int word_count = 0;
char **str_array;
FILE *file;
file = fopen("hw3-data.txt", "r");
// Allocate memory to the array of strings (char arrays)
word_alloc = 10;
str_array = (char **) malloc(sizeof(char*) * word_alloc);
while (fscanf(file, "%s", str) != EOF) {
//doubles the word_alloc/str_array if we have more words than allocated
if(word_count > word_alloc) {
word_alloc *= 2;
str_array =(char **) realloc(str_array, sizeof(char*) * word_alloc);
}
str_array[word_count] = (char *) malloc(sizeof(char) * (strlen(str) + 1));
strcpy(str_array[word_count], str);
++word_count;
}
return 0;
}

The errors happen because you have array overflow. Change
if(word_count > word_alloc)
to
if(word_count >= word_alloc)
to fix it.

Related

How do I fix realloc(): invalid next size in C

I have a Problem when I try to load a file into memory as an array.
I am trying to load a file into an array and print it out again but I would like to allow the memory to grow as the file length can be arbitrary.
When I run my Program locally on my Mac it seems to Work fine but when I try it on my Ubuntu VM, I get the following error
realloc(): invalid next size
Aborted (core dumped)
My Code is as follows
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
char **loadfile(char *filename, int *len);
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
if (argc == 1)
{
printf("Usage add file\n");
return 1;
}
int length = 0;
char **words = loadfile(argv[1],&length);
printf("%d\n", length);
for (int i = 0; i < length; i++) {
printf("%s\n",words[i]);
}
printf("Done\n");
return 0;
}
char **loadfile(char *filename, int *len)
{
const int STEPSIZE = 10;
FILE *f = fopen(filename,"r");
if (!f) {
fprintf(stderr, "Can't open file\n");
return NULL;
}
int arrlen = STEPSIZE;
char **lines = (char **)malloc(STEPSIZE);
char buf[100];
int i = 0;
int counter = 2;
while (fgets(buf,100,f))
{
if (i == arrlen)
{
counter++;
arrlen += STEPSIZE;
char **newlines = (char **)realloc(lines,counter * STEPSIZE);
if(!newlines)
{
printf("Out of memory\n");
//return 2;
}
lines = newlines;
}
buf[strlen(buf)-1] = '\0';
int slen = strlen(buf);
char *str = (char *)malloc(slen + 1 *sizeof(char ));
strcpy(str, buf);
lines[i] = str;
i++;
}
*len =i;
return lines;
}
and for the life of me I cannot find the problem.
I can only assume the problem is somewhere in this section but I may be wrong:
if (i == arrlen)
{
counter++;
arrlen += STEPSIZE;
char **newlines = (char **)realloc(lines,counter * STEPSIZE);
if(!newlines)
{
printf("Out of memory\n");
//return 2;
}
lines = newlines;
}
Your Help is greatly appreciated
const int STEPSIZE = 10;
char **lines = (char **)malloc(STEPSIZE);
char **newlines = (char **)realloc(lines,counter * STEPSIZE);
You don't want to allocate 10 bytes, but memory for 10 char * elements. Thus some subsequent access to lines[i] = str; is invalid.
What you meant to do is:
char **lines = malloc(sizeof(*lines) * STEPSIZE);
char **newlines = realloc(lines, sizeof(*newlines) * counter * STEPSIZE);
Alternatively you can use sizeof(char*).
Also:
char *str = (char *)malloc(slen + 1 *sizeof(char ));
although it is correct and will work, because sizeof(char) is 1, but it's more clearly the intention was:
char *str = malloc((slen + 1) * sizeof(char));
Also, it's good to think if you should cast the result of malloc.
You forgot that malloc and realloc take an amount of bytes, not an amount of 'cells' in your array.
The program works as expected if you replace your malloc(STEPSIZE) by malloc(STEPSIZE * sizeof(char*)) and realloc(lines, counter * STEPSIZE) by realloc(lines, (counter * STEPSIZE) * sizeof(char*))

Realloc on an array of structs, address boundary error when indexing

I have some code where I'm trying to read lines in from a file and store some information from each line in a struct. Since I don't know how long the file will be, I'm dynamically adjusting the array of structs using realloc.
My issue is that my code seems to work fine for the first 3 (technically 6) lines, and then I receive SIGSEGV (address boundary error). gdb says that this happens when trying to index the array (array[i]->string = (char*) _tmp).
typedef struct {
char* string;
int len;
} buffer;
int read_into_array(char *filename, buffer** array) {
int n;
size_t size;
char* buf = NULL;
FILE *file = fopen(filename, "r");
int i = 0;
while (1) {
buffer *tmp = (buffer*)realloc(*array, sizeof(buffer) * (i + 1));
if (!tmp)
printf("Failed realloc\n");
*array = tmp;
// First line is ignored, second line is taken as data.
getline(&buf, &size, file);
n = getline(&buf, &size, file);
if (n > 0) {
void* _tmp = malloc(sizeof(char) * n);
if (!_tmp)
printf("Failed malloc\n");
array[i]->string = (char*) _tmp;
array[i]->len = n-1;
strncpy(array[i]->string, buf, n-1);
}
i++;
if (feof(file)) {
printf("saw end of file, leaving.\n");
break;
}
}
return i;
}
int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {
char *filename = argv[1];
buffer *array = (buffer*) calloc(1, sizeof(buffer));
int num = read_into_array(filename, &array);
}
Apologies for the somewhat poor formatting, I've been trying to figure this out for a while.
Since it seems to work for the first few lines, my assumption is that I'm going wrong somewhere in the realloc calculation. My other guess is that I'm somehow using/reading the file incorrectly.
Thanks for any help. For posterity, the file looks something like this https://hastebin.com/vinidiyita.sm (the real file is thousands of lines long).
when you do *array=tmp you're allocating memory for array[0]
then you're using array[i] that should be a pointer to a buffer, but points to garbage or 0
You're confusing two ways to use data.
The first is by using arrays - there's the non-dynamic:
buffer array[x] = {0};
int num = read_into_array(filename, &array);
then you can use array[i]
and there's the dynamic type:
buffer **array = calloc(initial_len*sizeof(buffer *));
int num = read_into_array(filename, array, initial_len);
read_into_array(char *filename, buffer **&array, int initial_len)
{
int len = initial_len;
...
while()
{
...
if(i>len)
{
array = realloc(array, sizeof(buffer*) * (i + 1));
len = i;
}
array[i] = calloc(sizeof(buffer));
}
}

Cannot get realloc() to work

FILE *file;
file = fopen(argv[1], "r");
char *match = argv[2];
if (file == NULL) {
printf("File does not exist\n");
return EXIT_FAILURE;
}
int numWords = 0, memLimit = 20;
char** words = (char**) calloc(memLimit, sizeof(char));
printf("Allocated initial array of 20 character pointers.\n");
char string[20];
while (fscanf(file, "%[a-zA-Z]%*[^a-zA-Z]", string) != EOF) {
words[numWords] = malloc(strlen(string) + 1 * sizeof(char));
strcpy(words[numWords], string);
printf("Words: %s\n", words[numWords]);
numWords++; /*keep track of indexes, to realloc*/
if (numWords == memLimit) {
memLimit = 2 * memLimit;
words = (char**) realloc(words, memLimit * sizeof(char*)); /*Fails here*/
printf("Reallocated array of %d character pointers.\n", memLimit);
}
}
Code should open and read a file containing words with punctuation, spaces etc and store in a string, but after 20 tries it throws an error, and I can't seem to get realloc() to work here, which I'm expecting to be the problem. The array is dynamically allocated 20 char pointers, at which when limit is reached, it should realloc by double. How can I get around this?
Two notes. First, you shouldn't ever cast the return value of calloc/malloc/realloc. See this for more information.
Second, as others have pointed out in comments, the first calloc statement uses sizeof(char) and not sizeof(char*) like it should.
words is a pointer to a pointer. The idea is to allocate an array of pointers.
The below is wrong as it allocates for memLimit characters rather than memLimit pointers.
This is the main issue
char** words = (char**) calloc(memLimit, sizeof(char)); // bad
So use an easy idiom: allocate memLimit groups of whatever words points to. It is easier to write, read and maintain.
char** words = calloc(memLimit, sizeof *words);
Avoid the while (scanf() != EOF) hole. Recall that various results can come from scanf() family. It returns the count of successfully scanned fields or EOF. That is typically 1 of at least 3 options. So do not test for one result you do not want, test for the one result you do want.
// while (fscanf(file, "%[a-zA-Z]%*[^a-zA-Z]", string) != EOF) {
while (fscanf(file, "%[a-zA-Z]%*[^a-zA-Z]", string) == 1) {
The above example may not every return 0, but the below easily could.
int d;
while (fscanf(file, "%d", &d) == 1) {
#Enzo Ferber rightly suggests using "%s". Further recommend to follow the above idiom and restrict input width to 1 less than the size of the buffer.
char string[20];
while (fscanf(file, "%19s", string) == 1) {
Suggest the habit of checking allocation result.
// better to use `size_t` rather than `int `for array sizes.
size_t newLimit = 2u * memLimit;
char** newptr = realloc(words, newLimit * sizeof *newptr);
if (newptr == NULL) {
puts("Out-of-memory");
// Code still can use old `words` pointer of size `memLimit * sizeof *words`
return -1;
}
memLimit = newLimit;
words = newptr;
}
Errors
Don't cast malloc/calloc returns. There's not need for it.
Your first sizeof is wrong. It should be sizeof(char*)
That scanf() format string. %s does the job just fine.
Code
The following code worked for me (printed one word per line):
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
FILE *file;
file = fopen(argv[1], "r");
char *match = argv[2];
if (file == NULL) {
printf("File does not exist\n");
return EXIT_FAILURE;
}
int numWords = 0, memLimit = 20;
char **words = calloc(memLimit, sizeof(char*));
printf("Allocated initial array of 20 character pointers.\n");
char string[20];
while (fscanf(file, "%s", string) != EOF) {
words[numWords] =
malloc(strlen(string) + 1 * sizeof(char));
strcpy(words[numWords], string);
printf("Words: %s\n", words[numWords]);
numWords++; /*keep track of indexes, to realloc */
if (numWords == memLimit) {
memLimit = 2 * memLimit;
words = realloc(words, memLimit * sizeof(char *));
printf
("Reallocated array of %d character pointers.\n",
memLimit);
}
}
}
Called with ./realloc realloc.c
Hope it helps.
Your first allocation is the problem. You allocate 20 chars and treat them as 20 char pointers. You overrun the allocated buffer and corrupt your memory.
The second allocation fails because the heap is corrupted.

Get all the lines of a char array and segfault

I am trying to put all the lines of a file in a char **.
My function is very simple:
the only parameter is a pointer to a char array, which containts the file.
I first caculate the number of lines to allocate my char **.
Once is it allocated, I use strtok_r to parse file. and then Segfault.
I wanted to know if it was possible to do that with this way?
char **getlines(char *file)
{
int i = 0;
int nblines = 0;
while (file[i] != '\0')
{
if (file[i] == '\n')
nblines++;
i++;
}
char **array = malloc(sizeof(char*) * nblines);
char *saveptr;
if (nblines == 0)
return NULL;
int a = 0;
char *c = strtok_r(file, "\n", &saveptr);
while (c)
{
array[a] = strtok_r(NULL, "\n", &saveptr);
a++;
}
return array;
}
Should be:
char **array = malloc(sizeof(char*) * nblines);
which allocates an array of pointers to your lines.
It's confusing to speak about a file while you're actually having a char* string.
Then your while(c) loop does not end because you're not updating c in it. I leave that to you to fix.
Also, you have a memory leak with return NULL;. Put that check above array's malloc().
Sure you need the re-entrant version of strtok()?

reading a file to array of strings

I'm new to C and just learning about malloc and realloc and help from the community in understanding how to do this. I have a file with paragraphs that I need to read line by line and store the lines in array o strings while creating the arrays dynamically.
Inillially the MAX number of lines to store is 10 if this is not sufficient we use realloc to double the memory and print a message indicating that we reallocated memory. So far this is what I have and need help to finish
int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
char* p = malloc(10* sizeof(char));
while(buffer, sizeof(buffer), stdin)
{
}
}
while(buffer, ... does nothing, use fgets:
data.txt:
one
two
three
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#define BUF_LEN 32
extern char *strdup(const char *);
int main(void)
{
char **arr = NULL;
char buf[BUF_LEN];
size_t i, n = 0;
FILE *f;
f = fopen("data.txt", "r");
if (f == NULL) {
perror("fopen");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
while (fgets(buf, BUF_LEN, f)) {
arr = realloc(arr, sizeof(*arr) * (n + 1));
if (arr == NULL) {
perror("realloc");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
arr[n] = strdup(buf);
if (arr[n++] == NULL) {
perror("strdup");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
}
for (i = 0; i < n; i++) {
printf("%s", arr[i]);
free(arr[i]);
}
free(arr);
}
You said and you do need array of strings. Come to think of it, a string is a sequence/array of characters, right? So you need array of array of characters.
Now, a char * is capable of pointing to a character and indirectly to the subsequent characters, if there are any. This is what we call as a string, and here's how we have one:
char * astring = malloc( 256 * sizeof * astring );
// astring holds an adress pointing to a memory location
// which has the capacity of 256 *astring s
// astring is a string tha can hold 255 characters
// with the full-stop '\0' at the end
Now you want 10 of such, 10 of char *s. char ** will be able to point at them, just like char * can at chars.
char ** lines = malloc( 10 * sizeof * lines );
for ( int i = 0; i < 10; i++ )
lines[i] = malloc( 256 );
// sizeof may be omittid for chars
If you are planning to increase 10, it's a good idea to store that inside a variable, double it when needed and reallocate accordingly.
int numlines = 10;
int linelength = 256;
char ** lines = malloc( numlines * sizeof * lines );
for( int linenr = 0; fgets( lines[linenr] = malloc( linelength ), linelength, yourfile ) != EOF; linenr++ ) {
if ( linenr + 1 == numlines ) {
numlines *= 2;
lines = realloc( lines, numlines * sizeof * lines );
}
}
Include necessary headers, fill in the gaps and make checks if the allocations and fopen succeeded, make sure 256 is enough, increase that if necessary. You may optionally make that adaptive as well, but that'll require more code.

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