Segmentation fault in C with dynamic array - c

Please help me find an error in dynamic memory allocation.
It is necessary to print all the words that begin and end with one letter.
The algorithm works with a static array, but there is an error when trying to create a dynamic array.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
int main()
{
int len = 0;
char str[10] = "aba cd geg ";
char* word = NULL;
int j = 0;
int i = 0;
int n = 0;
while(str[i]!='\0')
{
if(!isspace(str[i]))
{
n++;
word = (char*)realloc(word, (n* sizeof(char)));
word[j] = str[i];
j++;
len++;
}
else
{
if(word[0] == word[len-1])
{
j = 0;
while(j < len)
{
printf("%c", word[j]);
j++;
}
}
j = 0;
len = 0;
free(word);
n = 0;
}
i++;
}
return 0;
}

Once you have freed word, you need to set word to NULL, because realloc can only be performed on a NULL pointer or on a valid pointer that has previously been returned by malloc, calloc or realloc.
...
len = 0;
free(word); // after this line, word is no more a valid pointer
word = NULL; // <<<< insert this
n = 0;
...
In other words this pattern is always wrong:
free(foobar);
foobar = realloc(foobar, ...);
Another possibility is not to free word at all and let the next realloc take care of it, which in this case is most likely more efficient.
...
len = 0;
// free(word); remove this line
n = 0;
...
but then you need to call free(word); at the end of the program, just before return 0;
So the end of your program would look like this:
...
j = 0;
len = 0;
n = 0;
}
i++;
}
free(word);
return 0;

Related

Selection of unique characters

Please, help with the code.
Requirement:
Write a function my_union that takes two strings and returns, without doubles, the characters that appear in either one of the strings.
Example:
Input: "zpadinton" && "paqefwtdjetyiytjneytjoeyjnejeyj"
Output: "zpadintoqefwjy"
My code:
#include <stdbool.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
char *my_union(char *a, char *b) {
char *str;
// Algorithm for excluding nonunique characters from string a(given in
// parameters).
str[0] = a[0];
int k = 1;
str[k] = '\0';
for (int i = 1; a[i] != '\0'; i++) {
bool is = true;
for (int j = 0; str[j] != '\0'; j++) {
if (str[j] == a[i]) {
is = false;
break;
}
}
if (is) {
str[k] = a[i];
k++;
str[k] = '\0';
}
} // In this case we are excluding excess character 'n' from "zpadinton", so
// str is equal to "zpadinto".
// Algorithm for adding unique characters from array b(given in parameters)
// into str.
for (int i = 0; b[i] != '\0'; i++) {
bool is = true;
for (int j = 0; str[j] != '\0'; j++) {
if (str[j] == b[i]) {
is = false;
break;
}
}
if (is) {
strncat(str, &b[i], 1);
}
}
return str;
}
The first algorithm is almost identical with second, but it doesn't work(. Mb I messed up with memory, give some advice, pls.
If you mean, get the unique characters from two strings and store them into a new string, try this code ;
First, you must allocate a memory for str. In your code, str is not pointing allocated memory location, so you will probably get segmentation fault.
int contains(const char * str,char c)
{
for (int i = 0; i < strlen(str); ++i)
if(str[i] == c)
return 1;
return 0;
}
char * my_union(char *a, char*b)
{
char * res = (char*)malloc(sizeof(char)*(strlen(a) + strlen(b)));
int pushed = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < strlen(a); ++i)
{
if(!contains(res,a[i])){
res[pushed] = a[i];
pushed++;
}
}
for (int i = 0; i < strlen(b); ++i)
{
if(!contains(res,b[i])){
res[pushed] = b[i];
pushed++;
}
}
return res;
}
int main(int argc, char const *argv[])
{
char string1[9] = "abcdefgh";
char string2[9] = "abegzygj";
char * result = my_union(string1,string2);
printf("%s\n", result);
return 0;
}
Also, do not forget the free the return value of my_union after you done with it.

How can I change an array of string pointers in another function?

I have been trying to figure out how to modify an array of char pointers but no matter what I do there appears to be no change below are the three arrays I'm trying to change including the call to the function I'm using.
char*cm1[5];
char*cm2[5];
char*cm3[5];
setupCommands(&cm1,commands,file,0);
setupCommands(&cm2,commands,file,1);
setupCommands(&cm3,commands,file,2);
The code below is the function itself.I was thinking that maybe it involves a double pointer but if I try *cmd to change the array I get a segmentation fault.
void setupCommands(char **cmd[], char* commands[],char file[],int index){
char str1[255];
strcpy(str1,commands[index]);
char newString [5][255];
int j = 0;
int ctr = 0;
int i;
//printf("str1 %s\n" ,str1);
for(i = 0; i <= strlen(str1); i++){
if(str1[i] == ' '|| str1[i] =='\0'){
newString[ctr][j] = '\0';
ctr++;//next row
j=0;// for next word, init index to 0
}else{
newString[ctr][j]=str1[i];
j++;
}
}
for(i = 0; i < ctr; i++){
//printf(" test2 %s \n", newString[i]);
cmd[i] = newString[i];
//printf(" test2 %d %s \n", i,cmd[i]);
}
//printf("index %d", i);
cmd[i]= file;
cmd[i + 1] = NULL;
//execvp(cmd[0],cmd);
//cmd
}
There are a few issues with your code:
you are trying to return references to the local 'char newString [5][255]' when the function exits. In simple worlds - never return anything locally allocated on the stack. This is the reason you are getting the segmentation fault.
char **cmd[] must be declared char *cmd[] - even though you will get a warning from the compiler assignment from incompatible pointer type, the code would run and execute correctly(essentially **cmd[] would do the same work as *cmd[], even though it's not of correct type) if you didn't return references to the local object;
Easy and simple optimization is just to remove the array str1 and directly operate on the array commands.
Apart from this simple optimization I have changed your code to overcome the segmentation fault, by allocating on the heap, instead on stack(will live until the program terminates) the multidimensional array, and I also calculate it's size so I will know how much memory to allocate. Now it's safe to return references to it.
Note that more optimizations could be made, but for the sake of the simplicity this is the bare minimal for this code to work.
int setupCommands(char *cmd[], char *commands[], char file[], int index)
{
int j = 0;
int ctr = 0;
int i = 0;
int rows = 0;
int cols = 0;
char **newString = NULL;
while(commands[index][i])
{
if (commands[index][i] == ' ')
{
++rows;
}
++i;
}
++rows;
cols = strlen(commands[index]) + 1;
newString = malloc(rows * sizeof(*newString));
if (newString == NULL)
{
return -1;
}
for (i = 0; i < rows; ++i)
{
newString[i] = malloc(cols * sizeof(*newString));
if (newString[i] == NULL)
{
return -1;
}
}
for(i = 0; i <= strlen(commands[index]); i++){
if(commands[index][i] == ' '|| commands[index][i] =='\0'){
newString[ctr][j] = '\0';
ctr++;//next row
j=0;// for next word, init index to 0
}else{
newString[ctr][j]=commands[index][i];
j++;
}
}
for(i = 0; i < ctr; i++){
cmd[i] = newString[i];
}
cmd[i]= file;
cmd[i + 1] = NULL;
return 0;
}
First of all - being the three stars pointer programmer is not good :)
You assign it with pointer to the local variable which is not longer available after the function return
But if you still want the three stars pointers:
char **cm1;
char **cm2;
char **cm3;
setupCommands(&cm1,commands,file,0);
setupCommands(&cm2,commands,file,1);
setupCommands(&cm3,commands,file,2);
#define MAXWORD 256
int setupCommands(char ***cmd, const char *commands,const char *file,int index){
char str1[255];
strcpy(str1,commands[index]);
int j = 0;
int ctr = 0;
int i;
//printf("str1 %s\n" ,str1);
*cmd = malloc(sizeof(char *));
**cmd = malloc(MAXWORD);
if(!*cmd || !**cmd)
{
/* do spmething if mallocs failed*/
return -1;
}
for(i = 0; i <= strlen(str1); i++){
if(str1[i] == ' '|| str1[i] =='\0'){
(*cmd)[ctr][j] = '\0';
ctr++;//next row
*cmd = realloc((ctr + 1) * sizeof(int));
(*cmd)[ctr] = malloc(MAXWORD);
if(!*cmd || !*cmd[ctr])
{
/* do spmething if mallocs failed*/
return -1;
}
j=0;// for next word, init index to 0
}else{
(*cmd)[ctr][j]=str1[i];
j++;
}
}
*cmd = realloc(sizeof(char *) * ctr + 2)
(*cmd)[ctr - 2] = malloc(MAX);
if(!*cmd || !*cmd[ctr - 2])
{
/* do spmething if mallocs failed*/
return -1;
}
strcpy((*cmd)[ctr - 2], file);
(*cmd)[ctr - 1] = NULL;
return 0;
//execvp(cmd[0],cmd);
//cmd
}
you can improve many things (for example do not realloc every time but in the larger chunks) and I did not change anything in your code logic.

word scramble with pointers in an array. Crashes when run

I am new to arrays with pointers, and I am trying to make an array of pointers word scramble game that allows 3 tries to guess the word before the game ends. Basically, I have created a function that scrambles a string. Then, that string is sent to a new string, which is shown to the user. The user then enters their guess. I am getting no signal from my compiler on what is wrong.. It just crashes when it is run. I believe the error is when I am sending the pointer to the method. Could someone please tell me why this error is happening? Thanks.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <time.h>
#include <ctype.h>
void scramble(char *strings)
{
int length = strlen(strings), i, randomNum;
char temp;
for(i = 0; i < length/2; i++)
{
randomNum = rand()%length;
temp = strings[i];
strings[i] = strings[length - randomNum];
strings[length - randomNum] = temp;
}
}
int main()
{
int i, tries, NUMWORDS;
char *words[] = { "pumpkin", "cantalope", "watermelon", "apple", "kumquat" };
char *scramWords, *user;
NUMWORDS = strlen(words);
srand(time(NULL));
for(i = 0; i < NUMWORDS; i++)
{
scramWords[i] = words[i];
scramble(scramWords[i]);
}
printf("How to play: You get 3 tries to guess each scrambled word.\n");
for(i = 0; i < NUMWORDS; i++)
{
tries = 0;
while(tries !=4)
{
if(tries == 3)
{
printf("You Lose\n");
return 0;
}
printf("Unscramble: %s\n", scramWords[i]);
gets(user);
if(strcmp(user, words[i]) == 0)
{
printf("Correct!\n");
break;
}
else
{
tries++;
}
}
}
printf("You Win!");
return 0;
}
You must not try to modify string literals, or you will invoke undefined behavior. Copy strings before editing them instead of just assigning pointers.
length - randomNum may be length when randomNum is 0.
strlen(words) won't be the number of elements in words. You can use sizeof(words) / sizeof(*words).
You must allocate some buffer to scramWords and user before writing anything there.
You shouldn't use gets(), which has unavoidable risk of buffer overrun, deprecated in C99 and removed from C11.
Try this:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <time.h>
#include <ctype.h>
void scramble(char *strings)
{
int length = strlen(strings), i, randomNum;
char temp;
for(i = 0; i < length/2; i++)
{
randomNum = rand()%length;
temp = strings[i];
strings[i] = strings[length - randomNum - 1];
strings[length - randomNum - 1] = temp;
}
}
int main(void)
{
int i, tries, NUMWORDS;
char *words[] = { "pumpkin", "cantalope", "watermelon", "apple", "kumquat" };
char **scramWords, user[1024], *lf;
NUMWORDS = sizeof(words) / sizeof(*words);
srand(time(NULL));
scramWords = malloc(sizeof(*scramWords) * NUMWORDS);
if(scramWords == NULL)
{
perror("malloc");
return 1;
}
for(i = 0; i < NUMWORDS; i++)
{
scramWords[i] = malloc(strlen(words[i]) + 1); /* +1 for terminating null-character */
if(scramWords[i] == NULL)
{
perror("malloc");
return 1;
}
strcpy(scramWords[i], words[i]);
scramble(scramWords[i]);
}
printf("How to play: You get 3 tries to guess each scrambled word.\n");
for(i = 0; i < NUMWORDS; i++)
{
tries = 0;
while(tries !=4)
{
if(tries == 3)
{
printf("You Lose\n");
return 0;
}
printf("Unscramble: %s\n", scramWords[i]);
if(fgets(user, sizeof(user), stdin) == NULL)
{
puts("fgets failed");
return 1;
}
if((lf = strchr(user, '\n')) != NULL)
{
*lf = '\0'; /* remove newline character after string read */
}
if(strcmp(user, words[i]) == 0)
{
printf("Correct!\n");
break;
}
else
{
tries++;
}
}
}
printf("You Win!");
return 0;
}
you have a few issues in your code:
1), scramblegets a char * but here
scramWords[i] = words[i];
scramble(scramWords[i]);
you provide it with a char so define your scramWords as a char** instead of char*
2) You don't allocate space when declaring a pointer - that could lead to segfault. Use malloc or before accessing the pointer.
3) When assigning strings from one pointer to another use strcpy, not = operator
4) Use sizeof(words)/sizeof(*words) instead of NUMWORDS = strlen(words);
That should leave you with a working piece of code, but, as said in comments - take care of your warnings!

How to reassign a string?

I am trying to write a program which merges a lines from stdin and print only those sentences which are longer than 80 characters. The first found line works well - the later ones, however, are empty. I think that I am doing something wrong with the line
current_sentence = malloc(sentence_len);.
How can I reassign a string correctly?
Code
# include <stdio.h>
# include <stdlib.h>
# include <string.h>
# define BUFFERSIZE 100
char* merge_string(char *text[], int n){
int i;
char *result = malloc(BUFFERSIZE * n);
for (i=0; i < n; i++){
strcat(result, text[i]);
}
return result;
}
int main(int argc, char *argv[]){
char buffer[BUFFERSIZE];
int i = 0;
char *text[BUFFERSIZE];
while(fgets(buffer, BUFFERSIZE, stdin) != NULL){
text[i] = strdup(buffer);
i++;
}
char *sentence = merge_string(text, i);
int sentence_len = strlen(sentence);
int j = 0;
int counter = 0;
char *current_sentence = malloc(sentence_len);
while (j < sentence_len){
current_sentence[counter] = sentence[j];
if (sentence[j] == '\n' && counter >= 80){
printf(":::HIT:::%s\n\n\n", current_sentence);
counter = 0;
current_sentence = malloc(sentence_len);
}
else if (sentence[j] == '\n'){
puts("Resetting counter");
counter = 0;
}
j++; counter++;
}
return 0;
}
Output
make 1_17; ./1_17 < example.txt
make: `1_17' is up to date.
Resetting counter
Resetting counter
:::HIT:::SHenri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) said "Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst," but he shot more than one an hour.)
Resetting counter
:::HIT:::
Resetting counter
:::HIT:::
You are not terminating current_sentence with a null character ('\0'). If you want printf to print the string properly, better make sure it is null-terminated.
By the way, there's no need for a second malloc. Reuse the memory allocated for current_sentence without re-allocating.
Also note that you're not freeing the allocated memory properly. You should be use a matching free call for each malloc. Perhaps this isn't a problem now, but it creates a memory leak.
Your loop should look something like this:
while (j < sentence_len)
{
current_sentence[counter] = sentence[j];
if (sentence[j] == '\n')
{
if (counter >= 80)
{
current_sentence[counter + 1] = '\0'; // Make string null-terminated
printf(":::HIT:::%s\n\n\n", current_sentence);
}
else
{
puts("Resetting counter");
}
counter = 0;
}
else
{
counter++;
}
j++;
}
free(current_sentence); // Free allocated memory
Then again, as mentioned in a comment, you'd rather let fgets do the work for you indeed.
char *text[BUFFERSIZE];
should be
char text[BUFFERSIZE];

Print out the longest substring in c

Suppose that we have a string "11222222345646". So how to print out subsequence 222222 in C.
I have a function here, but I think something incorrect. Can someone correct it for me?
int *longestsubstring(int a[], int n, int *length)
{
int location = 0;
length = 0;
int i, j;
for (i = 0, j = 0; i <= n-1, j < i; i++, j++)
{
if (a[i] != a[j])
{
if (i - j >= *length)
{
*length = i - j;
location = j;
}
j = i;
}
}
return &a[location];
}
Sorry,I don't really understand your question.
I just have a little code,and it can print the longest sub string,hope it can help.
/*breif : print the longest sub string*/
void printLongestSubString(const char * str,int length)
{
if(length <= 0)
return;
int i ;
int num1 = 0,num2 = 0;
int location = 0;
for(i = 0; i< length - 1; ++i)
{
if(str[i] == str[i+1])
++num2;//count the sub string ,may be not the longest,but we should try.
else
{
if(num2 >num1)//I use num1 store the sum longest of current sub string.
{ num1 = num2;location = i - num2;}
else
;//do nothing for short sub string.
num2 = 0;
}
}
for(i = location;str[i]== str[num1];++i)
printf("%c",str[i]);
printf("\n");
}
int main()
{
char * str = "1122222234566";
printLongestSubString(str,13);
return 0;
}
From your code it appears you want to return the longest sub-sequence (sub-string). Since I'm relearning C I thought I would give it a shot.
I've used strndup to extract the substring. I'm not sure how portable it is but I found an implementation if needed, just click on the link. It will allocate memory to store the new cstring so you have to remember to free the memory once finished with the substring. Following your argument list, the length of the sub-string is returned as the third argument of the extraction routine.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
char *extract_longest_subsequence(const char *str, size_t str_len, size_t *longest_len);
int main()
{
char str[] = "11222234555555564666666";
size_t substr_len = 0;
char *substr = extract_longest_subsequence(str, sizeof(str), &substr_len);
if (!substr)
{
printf("Error: NULL sub-string returned\n");
return 1;
}
printf("original string: %s, length: %zu\n", str, sizeof(str)-1);
printf("Longest sub-string: %s, length: %zu\n", substr, substr_len);
/* Have to remember to free the memory allocated by strndup */
free(substr);
return 0;
}
char *extract_longest_subsequence(const char *str, size_t str_len, size_t *longest_len)
{
if (str == NULL || str_len < 1 || longest_len == NULL)
return NULL;
size_t longest_start = 0;
*longest_len = 0;
size_t curr_len = 1;
size_t i = 0;
for (i = 1; i < str_len; ++i)
{
if (str[i-1] == str[i])
{
++curr_len;
}
else
{
if (curr_len > *longest_len)
{
longest_start = i - curr_len;
*longest_len = curr_len;
}
curr_len = 1;
}
}
/* strndup allocates memory for storing the substring */
return strndup(str + longest_start, *longest_len);
}
It looks like in your loop that j is supposed to be storing where the current "substring" starts, and i is the index of the character that you are currently looking at. In that case, you want to change
for (i = 0, j = 0; i <= n-1, j < i; i++, j++)
to
for (i = 0, j = 0; i <= n-1; i++)
That way, you are using i to store which character you're looking at, and the j = i line will "reset" which string of characters you are checking the length of.
Also, a few other things:
1) length = 0 should be *length = 0. You probably don't actually want to set the pointer to point to address 0x0.
2) That last line would return where your "largest substring" starts, but it doesn't truncate where the characters start to change (i.e. the resulting string isn't necessarily *length long). It can be intentional depending on use case, but figured I'd mention it in case it saves some grief.

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