How to add offset to a character pointer? - c

I have a the following declarations :-
char szsrcBuf[10000]; /* stores main bufer */
int iOff2Verify; /* offset to start of verify area*/
int iLen2Verify; /* length of data to verify */
Now when I call the function with the following parameters :-
/* process data to verify */
if ((iRet = Verify_Mid(&mach, (char *)(szsrcBuf + (int)iOff2Verify),
iLen2Verify)) != 0)
break;
The signature for the Verify_Mid() looks like :-
int CALLBACK Verify_Mid(bsapi_id *mach, char *inputData, int inputDataLen);
Things work great.
-------------------xxx above is the is my first way of coding, that works. xxx----------------------
However my code started getting big enough, where I need to re-structure the function of my original call. So I split out the part where I am calling Verify_Mid.... as such:-
iRet = Verify_Request(x, y, szsrcBuf, z, &iOff2Verify, iLen2Verify, (char *)abc, &iabcLen);
The signature for the new helper function Verify_Request is:-
int CALLBACK Verify_Request(unsigned char *x, int y, unsigned char *szsrcBuf, char *z,
int *iOff2Verify, int iLen2Verify, char *abc, int *iabcLen);
Now inside my Verfiy_Request () :-
do{
..... stuff....
/* process data to verify */
if ((iRet = Verify_Mid(&mach, (char *)(szsrcBuf + (int)iOff2Verify),
iLen2Verify)) != 0)
break;
.... stuff .....
}while(0);
Until this point everything looks ok (on the apparent), however when I go to my Verfiy_Mid (), there is an error reading the 2nd parameter (char * inputData)... I have tried a couple of things with how I am passing the 2nd parameter, but to no avail... can anyone help me understand how to add the offset and then correctly pass it as a parameter to my next function ?

You are passing iOff2Verify as a pointer to function Verify_Request(...);
Therefore in order to actually pass data stored in that pointer, your call to Verify_Mid(...) needs to reflect that as well.
do{
/* process data to verify */
if ((iRet = Verify_Mid(&mach, (char *)(szsrcBuf + (*iOff2Verify)),
iLen2Verify)) != 0)
break;
}while(0);
By the way, if you don't need to change value of iOff2Verify in Verify_Request, there is no need to pass it as a pointer, just regular int would suffice and it would save you all the trouble of pointer debugging, which is usually just pure hell

Related

Segmentation fault in c (C90), Whats the problem?

Heres my main.c:
int main() {
char *x = "add r3,r5";
char *t;
char **end;
t = getFirstTok(x,end);
printf("%s",t);
}
And the function getFirstTok:
/* getFirstTok function returns a pointer to the start of the first token. */
/* Also makes *endOfTok (if it's not NULL) to point at the last char after the token. */
char *getFirstTok(char *str, char **endOfTok)
{
char *tokStart = str;
char *tokEnd = NULL;
/* Trim the start */
trimLeftStr(&tokStart);
/* Find the end of the first word */
tokEnd = tokStart;
while (*tokEnd != '\0' && !isspace(*tokEnd))
{
tokEnd++;
}
/* Add \0 at the end if needed */
if (*tokEnd != '\0')
{
*tokEnd = '\0';
tokEnd++;
}
/* Make *endOfTok (if it's not NULL) to point at the last char after the token */
if (endOfTok)
{
*endOfTok = tokEnd;
}
return tokStart;
}
Why do i get segmentation fault running this main program?
I'm programming a two pass aseembler and i need a function that get parse a string by a delimiter, In this case a white space. Is it better to use strtok instead for this purpose?
I need a command pasrer - So that it will extract "add", an operand parser (By , delimiter), To extract "r3" and "r5". I wanted to check if this getFirstTok function is good for this purpose but when i try to run it i get a segmentation fault:
Process finished with exit code 139 (interrupted by signal 11: SIGSEGV)
Thank you.
As pointed out in the comments, string literals are read-only, as they are baked into the compiled program. If you don't want to go with the suggested solution of making your "source program" a stack-allocated array of characters (char x[] = "add r3,r5"), you can use a function like strdup(3) to make a readable/writable copy like so:
#include <string.h>
[...]
char *rw_code = strdup(x);
t = getFirstTok(rw_code, end);
printf("%s", t);
free(rw_code); /* NOTE: invalidates _all_ references pointing at it! */
[...]
And as a little aside, I always make string literals constant const char *lit = "...", as the compiler will usually warn me if I attempt to write to them later on.

How to return a string from GetOpenFileNameA

This is a function to open a file dialog in Windows and return a string with the file name:
#include <windows.h>
#include <commdlg.h>
#include <string.h>
char* openFileDlg(char FileTypes[]);
char* openFileDlg(char FileTypes[]){
OPENFILENAME ofn;
char szFile[260];
HWND hwnd;
HANDLE hf;
ZeroMemory(&ofn, sizeof(ofn));
ofn.lStructSize = sizeof(ofn);
ofn.hwndOwner = hwnd;
ofn.lpstrFile = szFile;
ofn.lpstrFile[0] = '\0';
ofn.nMaxFile = sizeof(szFile);
strcpy(ofn.lpstrFilter,FileTypes);
ofn.nFilterIndex = 1;
ofn.lpstrFileTitle = NULL;
ofn.nMaxFileTitle = 0;
ofn.lpstrInitialDir = NULL;
ofn.Flags = OFN_PATHMUSTEXIST | OFN_FILEMUSTEXIST;
if(GetOpenFileNameA(&ofn)){
char *toReturn;
sprintf(toReturn,"%s",ofn.lpstrFile);
return toReturn;
}
else{
return NULL;
}
}
When I call this function and open a file, the process ends and returns value 3 (which means there is an error). How can I do so that this function returns a string with the path of the selected file?
Edit: I've changed my code to this and it still doesn't work:
#include <windows.h>
#include <commdlg.h>
#include <string.h>
void openFileDlg(char *toReturn[],char FileTypes[]);
void openFileDlg(char *toReturn[],char FileTypes[]){
OPENFILENAME ofn;
/*
Code for the settings of the GetOpenFileNameA, irrelevant in this question.
If you really need to know what's here, look at the code above.
*/
if(GetOpenFileNameA(&ofn)){
strcpy(*toReturn,ofn.lpstrFile);
}
else{
sprintf(*toReturn,"");
}
}
I should also say that if I press the Cancel button in the open file dialog box instead of selecting a file, it works fine. After some tests, I've noticed that it's the line strcpy(*toReturn,ofn.lpstrFile); that causes the error.
The pointer variable toReturn doesn't point anywhere, using it in any way without initializing it (i.e. making it point somewhere valid and big enough) will lead to undefined behavior
You have two solutions really:
Allocate memory dynamically and return a pointer to that. This of course requires the caller to free the memory when done with it.
Have the function take another two arguments: A pointer to a buffer and the length of the buffer. Then copy the string into that buffer, and return a boolean "true" or "false" success/failure status.
I recommend solution number two.
On an unrelated note, there's no need to use the expensive sprintf function in your case, a simple strcpy (or strncpy if you go with the second solution) will do.
You also have to remember in both cases that strings in C have an actual length of one more than e.g. strlen reports, for the terminating '\0' character.
In general, if you want to return a string in C, I'd use one of the following methods:
1) pass in a string buffer for the method to write to:
int openFileDlg(char FileTypes[], char* toReturn, int bufLen) {
/* ... */
snprintf(toReturn, bufLen, /* what you want to print */);
return ERROR; // status-code
}
/* ... */
char errorBuf[80];
int result;
result = openFileDlg(..., errorBuf, sizeof(errorBuf));
2) allocate memory, expect caller to free it:
char* openFileDlg(char FileTypes[]) {
/* ... */
char *toReturn = malloc(/* big enough */);
sprintf(toReturn, /* what you want to print */);
return toReturn;
}
/* ... */
char* error = openFileDlg(...);
if (error) {
/* ... */
free(error);
}
personally, I'd prefer (1) because it's safer. Option (2) is nicer to the API of the function, but has a risk of memory leaks if you forget to free the returned buffer. In a bigger project (especially with multiple people working on it) this is a very real risk.
(I realise this is pretty much the same as Joachim's answer, but his went up as I was writing mine)
You did not allocate memory for your return value. If you know the length of ofn.lpstrFile you could do this:
char *toReturn = malloc( (sizeOfLpstrFile + 1) * sizeof(char)) ;
sprintf(toReturn,"%s",ofn.lpstrFile);
return toReturn;
Still I consider this a bad idea because the calling function will have to free the memory which is not obvious from the interface.

TCL_LINK_STRING causing segmentation fault (core dumped)

I'm trying to share a variable with c and tcl, the problem is when i try to read the variable in the c thread from tcl, it causes segmentation error, i'm not sure this is the right way to do it, but it seems to work for ints. The part that is causing the segmentation fault is this line is when i try to print "Var" but i want to read the variable to do the corresponding action when the variable changes.
Here is the C code that i'm using
void mode_service(ClientData clientData) {
while(1) {
char* Var = (char *) clientData;
printf("%s\n", Var);
usleep(100000); //100ms
}
}
static int mode_thread(ClientData cdata, Tcl_Interp *interp, int objc, Tcl_Obj *const objv[]) {
Tcl_ThreadId id;
ClientData limitData;
limitData = cdata;
id = 0;
Tcl_CreateThread(&id, mode_service, limitData, TCL_THREAD_STACK_DEFAULT, TCL_THREAD_NOFLAGS);
printf("Tcl_CreateThread id = %d\n", (int) id);
// Wait thread process, before returning to TCL prog
int i, aa;
for (i=0 ; i<100000; i++) {aa = i;}
// Return thread ID to tcl prog to allow mutex use
Tcl_SetObjResult(interp, Tcl_NewIntObj((int)id));
printf("returning\n");
return TCL_OK;
}
int DLLEXPORT Modemanager_Init(Tcl_Interp *interp){
if (Tcl_InitStubs(interp, TCL_VERSION, 0) == NULL) {
return TCL_ERROR;
}
if (Tcl_PkgProvide(interp, "PCIe", "1.0") == TCL_ERROR) {
return TCL_ERROR;
}
// Create global Var
int *sharedPtr=NULL;
//sharedPtr = sharedPtr = (char *) Tcl_Alloc(sizeof(char));
Tcl_LinkVar(interp, "mode", (char *) &sharedPtr, TCL_LINK_STRING);
Tcl_CreateObjCommand(interp, "mode_thread", mode_thread, sharedPtr, NULL);
return TCL_OK;
}
In the tcl code, i'm changing the variable mode whenever the user presses a button for example:
set mode "Idle"
button .startSamp -text "Sample Start" -width 9 -height 3 -background $btnColor -relief flat -state normal -command {set mode "Sampling"}
set threadId [mode_thread]
puts "Created thread $threadId, waiting"
Your code is a complete mess! You need to decide what you are doing and then do just that. In particular, you are using Tcl_LinkVar so you need to decide what sort of variable you are linking to. If you get a mismatch between the storage, the C access pattern and the declared semantic type, you'll get crashes.
Because your code is in too complicated a mess for me to figure out exactly what you want to do, I'll illustrate with less closely related examples. You'll need to figure out from them how to change things in your code to get the result you need.
Linking Integer Variables
Let's do the simple case: a global int variable (declared outside any function).
int sharedVal;
You want your C code to read that variable and get the value. Easy! Just read it as it is in scope. You also want Tcl code to be able to write to that variable. Easy! In the package initialization function, put this:
Tcl_LinkVar(interp /* == the Tcl interpreter context */,
"sharedVal" /* == the Tcl name */,
(char *) &sharedVal /* == pointer to C variable */,
TCL_LINK_INT /* == what is it! An integer */);
Note that after that (until you Tcl_UnlinkVar) whenever Tcl code reads from the Tcl variable, the current value will be fetched from the C variable and converted.
If you want that variable to be on the heap, you then do:
int *sharedValPtr = malloc(sizeof(int));
C code accesses using *sharedValPtr, and you bind to Tcl with:
Tcl_LinkVar(interp /* == the Tcl interpreter context */,
"sharedVal" /* == the Tcl name */,
(char *) sharedValPtr /* == pointer to C variable */,
TCL_LINK_INT /* == what is it! An integer */);
Linking String Variables
There's a bunch of other semantic types as well as TCL_LINK_INT (see the documentation for a list) but they all follow that pattern except for TCL_LINK_STRING. With that, you do:
char *sharedStr = NULL;
Tcl_LinkVar(interp, "sharedStr", (char *) &sharedStr, TCL_LINK_STRING);
You also need to be aware that the string will always be allocated with Tcl_Alloc (which is substantially faster than most system memory allocators for typical Tcl memory usage patterns) and not with any other memory allocator, and so will also always be deallocated with Tcl_Free. Practically, that means if you set the string from the C side, you must use Tcl_Alloc to allocate the memory.
Posting Update Notifications
The final piece to note is when you set the variable from the C side but want Tcl to notice that the change has set (e.g., because a trace has been set or because you've surfaced the value in a Tk GUI), you should do Tcl_UpdateLinkedVar to let Tcl know that a change has happened that it should pay attention to. If you never use traces (or Tk GUIs, or the vwait command) to watch the variable for updates, you can ignore this API call.
Donal's answer is correct, but I try to show you what you did with your ClientData.
To clarify: All (or almost all, Idk) Tcl functions that take a function pointer also take a parameter of type ClientData that is passed to your function when Tcl calls it.
Let's take a look at this line:
Tcl_CreateObjCommand(interp, "mode_thread", mode_thread, NULL, NULL);
// ------------------------------------------------------^^^^
You always pass NULL as ClientData to the mode_thread function.
In the mode_thread function you use the passed ClientData (NULL) to pass it as ClientData to the new Thread:
limitData = cdata;
// ...
Tcl_CreateThread(&id, mode_service, limitData, TCL_THREAD_STACK_DEFAULT, TCL_THREAD_NOFLAGS);
In the mode_service function you use the ClientData (which is still NULL) as pointer to a char array:
char* Var = (char *) clientData;
Which is a pointer to the address 0x00.
And then you tell printf to dereference this NULL pointer:
printf("%s\n", Var);
Which obviously crashes your program.

Pointer to Pointer

I am having a lot of trouble with this piece of code (I am not good at pointers :P). So here is the code.
printf("\n Enter the file name along with its extensions that you want to delete:-");
scanf("%s",fileName);
deletefile_1_arg=fileName;
printf("test\n");
result_5 = deletefile_1(&deletefile_1_arg, clnt);
if (result_5 == (int *) NULL) {
clnt_perror (clnt, "call failed");
}
else
{
printf("\n File is deleted sucessfully");
goto Menu2;
}
break;
Function that is getting called is as following.
int *
deletefile_1_svc(char **argp, struct svc_req *rqstp)
{
static int result;
printf("test2\n");
printf("%s",**argp);
if(remove(**argp));
{
printf("\nFile Has Been Deleted");
result=1;
}
return &result;
}
I am getting test2 on console but. It does not print value of argp / removes that perticular file. I am not sure what I am doing wrong. Please help me.
The argp is a pointer to a pointer char, and you are trying to use it as a pointer to char, try change your code to:
printf("%s", *argp);
You would also need to change your remove call to:
remove(*argp);
I always found drawing pictures helped understand pointers. Use boxes for memory addresses and a label for the box is the variable name. If the variable is a pointer, then the contents of the box is the address of another box (draw line to the other box).
You are using pointers when you don't need to. Your "deletefile1_svc" function doesn't manipulate the value of "argp" at all so it doesn't need a pointer-to-pointer. Plus your "result" doesn't need to be returned as a pointer since it is simply a numeric value. You also don't initialize result (it might be zero) or re-initialize it (it is static so it will remember the last value assigned to it).
int
deletefile_1_svc(const char *argp, struct svc_req *rqstp)
{
int result = 0; /* Initial value => failure */
if (remove (argp) == 0)
{
result = 1; /* 1 => success */
}
return result;
}
To call the function use:
result_5 = deletefile1_svc(filename, clnt);
if (result_5 == 0)
// Failed
else
// Success
That will make the code simpler and less prone to bugs.

External Functions and Parameter Size Limitation (C)

I am very much stuck in the following issue. Any help is very much appreciated!
Basically I have a program wich contains an array of structs and I am getting a segmentation error when I call an external function. The error only happens when I have more than 170 items on the array being passed.
Nothing on the function is processed. The program stops exactly when accessing the function.
Is there a limit for the size of the parameters that are passed to external functions?
Main.c
struct ratingObj {
int uid;
int mid;
double rating;
};
void *FunctionLib; /* Handle to shared lib file */
void (*Function)(); /* Pointer to loaded routine */
const char *dlError; /* Pointer to error string */
int main( int argc, char * argv[]){
// ... some code ...
asprintf(&query, "select mid, rating "
"from %s "
"where uid=%d "
"order by rand()", itable, uid);
if (mysql_query(conn2, query)) {
fprintf(stderr, "%s\n", mysql_error(conn2));
exit(1);
}
res2 = mysql_store_result(conn2);
int movieCount = mysql_num_rows(res2);
// withhold is a variable that defines a percentage of the entries
// to be used for calculations (generally 20%)
int listSize = round((movieCount * ((double)withhold/100)));
struct ratingObj moviesToRate[listSize];
int mvCount = 0;
int count =0;
while ((row2 = mysql_fetch_row(res2)) != NULL){
if(count<(movieCount-listSize)){
// adds to another table
}else{
moviesToRate[mvCount].uid = uid;
moviesToRate[mvCount].mid = atoi(row2[0]);
moviesToRate[mvCount].rating = 0.0;
mvCount++;
}
count++;
}
// ... more code ...
FunctionLib = dlopen("library.so", RTLD_LAZY);
dlError = dlerror();
if( dlError ) exit(1);
Function = dlsym( FunctionLib, "getResults");
dlError = dlerror();
(*Function)( moviesToRate, listSize );
// .. more code
}
library.c
struct ratingObj {
int uid;
int mid;
double rating;
};
typedef struct ratingObj ratingObj;
void getResults(struct ratingObj *moviesToRate, int listSize);
void getResults(struct ratingObj *moviesToRate, int listSize){
// ... more code
}
You are likely blowing up the stack. Move the array to outside of the function, i.e. from auto to static land.
Another option is that the // ... more code - array gets populated... part is corrupting the stack.
Edit 0:
After you posted more code - you are using C99 variable sized array on the stack - Bad IdeaTM. Think what happens when your data set grows to thousands, or millions, of records. Switch to dynamic memory allocation, see malloc(3).
You don't show us what listsize is, but I suppose it is a variable and not a constant.
What you are using are variable length arrays, VLA. These are a bit dangerous if they are too large since they usually allocated on the stack.
To work around that you can allocate such a beast dynamically
struct ratingObj (*movies)[listSize] = malloc(sizeof(*movies));
// ...
free(movies);
You'd then have in mind though that movies then is a pointer to array, so you have to reference with one * more than before.
Another, more classical C version would be
struct ratingObj * movies = malloc(sizeof(*movies)*listsize);
// ...
free(movies);

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