reading file`s lines char by char into char** array - c

Question

I wrote the next function that tries to read and enter each line from text file into a string array in c :
int main(int argc,char* argv[])
{
char ** lines;
readFile(argv[1],lines);
}
int readFile(char* filePath,char** lines)
{
char file_char;
int letter_in_line=0;
int line=1;
char* line_string=malloc(1024);
int j=1;
int fd=open(filePath,O_RDONLY);
if (fd < 0)
{
return 0;
}
while (read(fd,&file_char,1) >0)
{
if(file_char != '\n' && file_char != '0x0')
{
line_string[letter_in_line] = file_char;
letter_in_line++;
}
else
{
if(lines != NULL)
{
lines=(char**)realloc(lines,sizeof(char*)*line);
}
else
{
lines=(char**)malloc(sizeof(char*));
}
char* line_s_copy=strdup(line_string);
lines[line-1]=line_s_copy;
line++;
letter_in_line=0;
memset(line_string,0,strlen(line_string));
}
j++;
}
printf("cell 0 : %s",lines[0]);
return 1;
}
I have 2 questions :
1)Whenever the code reaches the print of cell 0, I'm getting
Segmentation fault (core dumped) error. What is wrong ?
2)In case I
want to see the changes in the lines array in my main, I should pass
&lines to the func and get char*** lines as an argument ? In
addition, I will need to replace every 'line' keyword with '*line' ?
*I know that I can use fopen,fget, etc... I decided to implement it in this way for a reason.

Answer 1

There is many issues that make your code core dump.
Here a version very similar to your code. I hope it will help you to understand this.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int read_file(const char *filename, char ***result)
{
/* open the file */
const int fd = open(filename, O_RDONLY);
if (fd < 0) {
*result = NULL;
return -1;
}
/* read the file characters by characters */
char *buffer = (char *)malloc(sizeof(char) * 1024);
char c;
int column = 0;
int line = 0;
*result = NULL;
/* for each characters in the file */
while (read(fd, &c, 1) > 0) {
/* check for end of line */
if (c != '\n' && c != 0 && column < 1024 - 1)
buffer[column++] = c;
else {
/* string are null terminated in C */
buffer[column] = 0;
column = 0;
/* alloc memory for this line in result */
*result = (char **)realloc(*result, sizeof(char *) *
(line + 1));
/* duplicate buffer and store it in result */
(*result)[line++] = strdup(buffer);
}
}
free(buffer);
return line;
}
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
if (argc != 2) {
fprintf(stderr, "usage: %s [filename]", argv[0]);
return 1;
}
char **lines;
int line_count = read_file(argv[1], &lines);
if (line_count < 0) {
fprintf(stderr, "cannot open file %s\n", argv[1]);
return 1;
}
for(int i=0; i < line_count; i++)
printf("%s\n", lines[i]);
return 0;
}
Here an other version:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int read_file(const char *filename, char ***result)
{
/* init result */
*result = NULL;
/* open the file */
FILE *file = fopen(filename, "r");
if (file == NULL)
return -1;
/* read the file line by line */
char *buffer = (char *)malloc(sizeof(char) * 1024);
int line = 0;
while (fgets(buffer, 1024, file)) {
*result = (char **)realloc(*result, sizeof(char *) *
(line + 1));
(*result)[line++] = strdup(buffer);
}
free(buffer);
return line;
}
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
if (argc != 2) {
fprintf(stderr, "usage: %s [filename]", argv[0]);
return 1;
}
char **lines;
int line_count = read_file(argv[1], &lines);
if (line_count < 0) {
fprintf(stderr, "cannot open file %s\n", argv[1]);
return 1;
}
for(int i=0; i < line_count; i++)
printf("%s\n", lines[i]);
return 0;
}