Accessing members of dynamically allocated array of pointers to structs - arrays

Question

I need to have a global dynamic array of pointers, in which I will store my structs, beacuse later I will need to iterate through this array to list all the stored information, I also need to be able to read the name, age and job variables from the console, and store them in a person_t in the iterator array.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
typedef struct Person
{
char name[30];
int age;
char job[30];
} person_t;
person_t **iterator;
int capacity = 10;
int size = 0;
int main()
{
int i;
*iterator = (person_t *)malloc(capacity * sizeof(person_t));
for (i = 0; i < capacity; ++i)
{
person_t p;
p.age = i;
*iterator[i] = p;
}
return 0;
}
I get no errors/warnings compiling this code (gcc -ansi -pedantic -Wall -Wextra), but when I try to run it, I get a Segmentation fault immediately.

Answer 1

When you do this:
*iterator = (person_t *)malloc(capacity * sizeof(person_t));
You're deferencing iterator, however as a file-scope pointer variable it's initialized to NULL. Attempting to dereference a NULL pointer invokes undefined behavior.
I suspect what you really want is an array of structs, not an array of pointers to structs. That being the case, define iterator as:
person_t *iterator;
Then you allocate memory for it like this:
iterator = malloc(capacity * sizeof(person_t));
Then assign to array elements like this:
iterator[i] = p;

Answer 2

Your stated purpose is to create a "global dynamic array of pointers, in which I will store my structs". The following modification of your code (see comments) will do this:
person_t p[10] = {0};
int main()
{
int i;
// with declaration: person_t **iterator = NULL;,
//following is all that is needed to create an array of pointers:
iterator = malloc(capacity * sizeof(person_t *));//no need to cast return of malloc
for (i = 0; i < capacity; ++i)
{
//person_t p;//moved to scope that will exist outside of main()
p[i].age = i;
iterator[i] = &p[i];//assign the address of the object to the pointer
//iterator[i] is the ith pointer in a collection of
//pointers to be assigned to point to
//instances of struct person_t
}
//Once all fields are populated (to-do), the following will display the results:
for (i = 0; i < capacity; ++i)
{
printf("%d) Name: %s Age: %d Job: %s\n", i, iterator[i]->name,iterator[i]->age,iterator[i]->job);
}
return 0;
}

Answer 3

you are not allocating memory correctly
First you need to allocate memory for a pointer which can store capacity number of address i.e done through iterator = malloc(capacity * sizeof(person_t*)); and then you need to allocate memory for holding each structure element i.e iterator[i] = malloc(sizeof(person_t));
all the malloc'ed memory should be free'd once we are done with it.
Also, have not done the error check for malloc's , that is left as an exercise for you.
int main()
{
int i;
// test data
char *names[] = {"ABC", "DEF"};
char *jobs[] = {"Accountant", "Security"};
int ages[] = {50, 60};
// first allocate memory for iterator , which can hold pointers to store iterator poniters
iterator = malloc(capacity * sizeof(person_t*));
for (i = 0; i < capacity; ++i)
{
// now allocate memory for individual iterator
iterator[i] = malloc(sizeof(person_t));
strcpy(iterator[i]->name,names[i]);
iterator[i]->age = ages[i];
strcpy(iterator[i]->job, jobs[i]);
}
for (i = 0; i < capacity; ++i)
{
printf("name = %s ", iterator[i]->name);
printf("Age = %d ", iterator[i]->age);
printf("Job = %s\n", iterator[i]->job);
}
return 0;
}