Thread: Strange concat bugg

Hello!

I'm writing my own shell, but I'm getting a strange error. I read a number of paths from a file when I start the shell, but for some bizarr reason I realised that any threechar commands in /usr/bin are impossible to run. All other commands work fine.

So I tried some things and figured out there is a strange bug in my concat function which I can't figure out. I add two strings together, and it works fine, but whenever the total size of the string is 12 chars it becomes 15 chars. Below is the concat-function along with a main for testing it. The output when running this program is:

Size 1: 9
Size 2: 3
Sum: 12
The parts: /usr/bin/ - zip
The concat string: /usr/bin/zip|
Sum 15: /usr/bin/zip

The program (concat test program that is..):

Code:

char* concat(char* strang1, char* strang2)
{
  int x=0;
  int y=0;
  int cx=0;
  char* newStr;
  int size1;
  int size2;
  int sum;

  while(strang1[x]!=0)
    x++;
  size1=x;
  x=0;
  while(strang2[x]!=0)
    x++;
  size2=x;
  x=0;
  sum=size1+size2;

  printf("Size 1: %d\nSize 2: %d\nSum: %d\n",size1,size2,sum);

  //  newStr=(char*)malloc(sum*sizeof(char));
  printf("The parts: %s - %s\n",strang1,strang2);
  newStr=(char*)calloc(sum,sizeof(char));

  for (x=0;x<size1;x++)
    newStr[x]=strang1[x];

  for (cx=0;cx<size2;cx++)
    newStr[x+cx]=strang2[cx];

  printf("The concat string: %s|\n",newStr);
  return(newStr);
}

int main()
{
  char* part1="/usr/bin/";
  char* part2="zip";
  char* total=concat(part1,part2);
  int x=0;
  while(total[x]!=0)
    x++;

  printf("Sum %d: %s\n",x,total);
  free(total);
  exit(0);
}

Does anyone have any idea why this happens? I can't figure it out.

Just a comment about my question. Since someone might ask, I wanted to add that it works for both longer and short strings ("e.g. "/usr/bin/id" works, aswell as "/usr/bin/time".

The problem occurs for both malloc and calloc, but only for this length.

calloc sum + 1 so newStr is will be null-terminated.

I hope you're including stdlib.h and stdio.h as well.

gg

Ok, thanks for the tip. I thought it was automatic, but I guess not.

Yes, I'm including stdlib.h and stdio.h, I just didn't write it out since it didn't feel relevant :-)

Thank you very much. Adding 1 to the sum actually made it work.

I'm still curious why it worked for all other commands and all other string lengths though.

Originally Posted by Zarniwoop

I'm still curious why it worked for all other commands and all other string lengths though.

Pure luck. (or lack thereof, since it was hiding a bug).

Seems like it, but still. It always worked for all other commands, and never worked for three-char commands in /usr/bin. It doesn't seem random, it was always the same.