Weird characters in string with C (Structs, pointers, and strings) - c

Question

Hi I'm creating a linked list that holds students' information.
However, when displaying the string variables of the student struct, it displays characters other than the strings that it's supposed to display. Here is the snippet from my code (I cut out the code unrelated to my problem):
# include <stdio.h>
# include <stdlib.h>
struct Student {
int student_number[2];
char *last;
char *first;
char *course;
int year;
int age;
char sex;
int grade;
struct Student * next;
};
typedef struct Student Student;
struct SLList {
Student * head;
Student * tail;
int size;
};
typedef struct SLList SLList;
void initList(SLList * list){
list->head = 0;
list->tail = 0;
list->size = 0;
}
Student * getStudent(SLList * list, int index) {
Student * current = list->head;
for (int i = 0; i < index; i ++) {
current = current->next;
}
return current;
}
Student * createStudent(int * number, char *last, char *first, char * course, int year, int age, char sex, int grade){
Student * student = (Student *) malloc(sizeof(Student));
student->student_number[0] = number[0];
student->student_number[1] = number[1];
student->last = last;
student->first = first;
student->course = course;
student->year = year;
student->age = age;
student->sex = sex;
student->grade = grade;
student->next = 0;
return student;
}
void enrolStudent(SLList * list, int index){
Student * student;
int i, found = 1;
int student_number[2];
char last[15];
char first[15];
char course[15];
int year;
int age;
char sex;
int grade;
printf("Student Number: ");
scanf("%i-%i", &student_number[0], &student_number[1]);
printf("Last Name: ");
scanf("%s", last);
printf("First Name: ");
scanf("%s", first);
printf("Course: ");
scanf("%s", course);
printf("Year: ");
scanf("%i", &year);
printf("Age: ");
scanf("%i", &age);
printf("Sex [M or F]: ");
scanf(" %c", &sex);
printf("Final Grade: ");
scanf("%i", &grade);
Student * toInsert = createStudent(student_number, last, first, course, year, age, sex, grade);
if (index == 0){
toInsert->next = list->head;
list->head = toInsert;
}
if (index == list->size){
if (list->tail != 0) {
list->tail->next = toInsert;
}
list->tail = toInsert;
}
list->size ++;
return;
}
void showStudents(SLList * list, int index) {
Student * student = getStudent(list, index);
printf("\n");
printf("Student Number: %i-%i\n", student->student_number[0], student->student_number[1]);
printf("Last Name: %s\n", student->last);
printf("First Name: %s\n", student->first); //! error in printing strings
printf("Course: %s\n", student->course);
printf("Year Level: %i\n", student->year);
printf("Age: %i\n", student->age);
printf("Sex: %c\n", student->sex);
printf("Final Grade: %i\n", student->grade);
printf("\n");
}
int main(){
int choice = 0;
int rtn = 0;
SLList students;
initList(&students);
printf("What do you want to do?\n");
printf("1. Enrol a student\n");
[...]
printf("4. Display all student/s\n");
for(;;){
printf("\nEnter a number: ");
rtn = scanf("%d", &choice);
if (choice == 1) {
enrolStudent(&students, students.size);
} else if (choice == 4) {
int i;
for (i = 0; i < students.size; i ++){
showStudents(&students, i);
}
printf("Displaying %i of %i student(s)\n", i, students.size);
}
[...]
}
I believe that I need to allocate memory for the char * variables of the struct, but I don't know how it should go.
Hope to get some help. Thanks!

Answer 1

you are passing local variable address to createStudent and simply assigning this to internal pointers that's wrong.
you can do is use something like an strdup call as below
student->last = strdup(last);
student->first = strdup(first);
student->course = stddup(course);
or allocate space to last, first and course and copy the string

Answer 2

Your assumption is correct: You assigned pointers to stack objects to your list elements. So the content is likely to be overwritten on the course of further execution of the program, which gives you the weird characters in the output further down the road.
The correct way would be to allocate memory for the strings during createStudent which is done through malloc or calloc of minimum the length of the string. And you already have an example there in your function, so I'm a bit surprised that you stated you don't know how to do that. Another possibility is to call strdup for that purpose which basically does exactly the combination of allocation and string copy.
Oh and one more remark: Please make it a habit from the beginning of your career that you clean up after yourself. Meaning: Whatever you allocate, deallocate it after usage. In your case: If you have a createStudent function, create a destroyStudent function. If you have a linked list somewhere, free it before exitting the program. Picking that habit up early will save you from memory leaks in the future.