easy c question: compare first char of a char array - c

Question

How can I compare the first letter of the first element of a char**?
I have tried:
int main()
{
char** command = NULL;
while (true)
{
fgets(line, MAX_COMMAND_LEN, stdin);
parse_command(line, command);
exec_command(command);
}
}
void parse_command(char* line, char** command)
{
int n_args = 0, i = 0;
while (line[i] != '\n')
{
if (isspace(line[i++]))
n_args++;
}
for (i = 0; i < n_args+1; i++)
command = (char**) malloc (n_args * sizeof(char*));
i = 0;
line = strtok(line," \n");
while (line != NULL)
{
command[i++] = (char *) malloc ( (strlen(line)+1) * sizeof(char) );
strcpy(command[i++], line);
line = strtok(NULL, " \n");
}
command[i] = NULL;
}
void exec_command(char** command)
{
if (command[0][0] == '/')
// other stuff
}
but that gives a segmentation fault. What am I doing wrong?
Thanks.

Answer 1

Could you paste more code? Have you allocated memory both for your char* array and for the elements of your char* array?

Answer 2

The problem is, you do allocate a char* array inside parse_command, but the pointer to that array never gets out of the function. So exec_command gets a garbage pointer value. The reason is, by calling parse_command(line, command) you pass a copy of the current value of the pointer command, which is then overwritten inside the function - but the original value is not affected by this!
To achieve that, either you need to pass a pointer to the pointer you want to update, or you need to return the pointer to the allocated array from parse_command. Apart from char*** looking ugly (at least to me), the latter approach is simpler and easier to read:
int main()
{
char** command = NULL;
while (true)
{
fgets(line, MAX_COMMAND_LEN, stdin);
command = parse_command(line);
exec_command(command);
}
}
char** parse_command(char* line)
{
char** command = NULL;
int n_args = 0, i = 0;
while (line[i] != '\n')
{
if (isspace(line[i++]))
n_args++;
}
command = (char**) malloc ((n_args + 1) * sizeof(char*));
i = 0;
line = strtok(line," \n");
while (line != NULL)
{
command[i] = (char *) malloc ( (strlen(line)+1) * sizeof(char) );
strcpy(command[i++], line);
line = strtok(NULL, " \n");
}
command[i] = NULL;
return command;
}
Notes:
in your original parse_command, you allocate memory to command in a loop, which is unnecessary and just creates memory leaks. It is enough to allocate memory once. I assume that you want command to contain n_args + 1 pointers, so I modified the code accordingly.
in the last while loop of parse_command, you increment i incorrectly twice, which also leads to undefined behaviour, i.e. possible segmentation fault. I fixed it here.