Pointers + Malloc = Painloc

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10-18-2008
Chalks

Pointers + Malloc = Painloc
I am yet another college student trying to figure out malloc and pointers. I've spent the last 7 hours working on a rather involved project, and I'm stuck, stuck, stuck. After some fruitless googling, and forum searching, I've got a few questions that I'm hoping some of you would be willing to answer. Thanks in advance!

What I'm trying to do:
I need to create a "void pointer to the global memory" and allow the user to input certain commands that put data into various locations. For example: "stoint 2a3fh @4ah" stores the hexadecimal integer 2a3f in the hexadecimal address 4a. Possible data that will be put in are hexadecimal integers, and variable length strings. I also need a function that dumps the contents of the pointer in such a way that the hex value of each byte is displayed.

Questions:
1. Void pointers?
  my project says
  
  Quote:
  
  Originally Posted by my evil professor
  
  declare a void pointer to the global memory
  initialize the pointer using malloc to allocate 256 bytes
  
  I thought I could do that with
  
  Code:
  
  void *mem[256] = (void *) malloc(256);
  
  but apparently if I put that above my main functions (where I declare all the function prototypes and whatnot) it doesn't compile.
2. How do I access the data?
  I'm guessing that actually initializing the mem pointer is really easy to do. I'm sure that I'm close but I can't quite grasp it. What is completely baffling me though, is once I have this pointer of 256 bytes... how do I traverse it and print the data inside it? More importantly, how do I put other things inside the pointer (characters or integers)?
3. What's %p?
  In a small c program my professor wrote, he uses %p to show some data. I can't figure out what that's supposed to mean. I thought you used %x for hex? Incidentally, I've pored over that program for hints on what to do here... still rather confused though. :(
Ugh. That's a lot of stuff. If anyone is able to give me some ideas, I would really appreciate it. If I used terminology that doesn't make sense, sorry about that, I'm new to C (as you can tell). Also, if it clarifies things any, here's a sample memory dump given in the project (left column is relative memory location, middle column is hexadecimal output?, right column is any printable character):

Code:

stoint ch @12h // user input stoint 3h @16h // user input stostr "this is fun" @22h // user input dump // user input 0000: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 0010: 00 00 0c 00 00 00 03 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 0020: 00 00 74 68 69 73 20 69 73 20 66 75 6e 00 00 00 ..this is fun... // LIES 0030: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 0040: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 0050: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 0060: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 0070: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 0080: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 0090: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 00a0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 00b0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 00c0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 00d0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 00e0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 00f0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
10-18-2008
tabstop

%x prints an integer as hex, yes. Since you don't have an integer (you have a pointer), that's irrelevant. %p prints a pointer.

What do you (or your professor) think "global memory" means?
10-18-2008
zacs7

Quote:

I'm guessing that actually initializing the mem pointer is really easy to do. I'm sure that I'm close but I can't quite grasp it. What is completely baffling me though, is once I have this pointer of 256 bytes... how do I traverse it and print the data inside it? More importantly, how do I put other things inside the pointer (characters or integers)?

Simple pointer arithmetic :). You will have to cast however, (ie to char * or int *) as you can't do arithmetic on void pointers since the void type has no size.

BTW,

Code:

void *mem[256] = (void *) malloc(256);

Is an array of 256 void pointers... Not what you want. You need 1 void pointer that points to 256 bytes that you allocated, the cast on malloc() is also pointless (See the FAQ) -- but casting (void *) to (void *) does nothing...

Code:

void * mem = malloc(256);
10-18-2008
King Mir

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chalks

Void pointers?
my project says

Quote:

Originally Posted by my evil professor

declare a void pointer to the global memory
initialize the pointer using malloc to allocate 256 bytes

I thought I could do that with

Code:

void *mem[256] = (void *) malloc(256);

but apparently if I put that above my main functions (where I declare all the function prototypes and whatnot) it doesn't compile.

You declared an array of void pointers. You only want one pointer.

Quote:

[*]How do I access the data?
I'm guessing that actually initializing the mem pointer is really easy to do. I'm sure that I'm close but I can't quite grasp it. What is completely baffling me though, is once I have this pointer of 256 bytes... how do I traverse it and print the data inside it? More importantly, how do I put other things inside the pointer (characters or integers)?

Bytes are represented by the types "signed char" and "unsigned char", depending if you want the value to be treated as signed or unsigned. So you need a pointer to one of these types. Traversing the array requires a loop that prints out each byte. This can be done by printing each offset from your pointer with [], or by incrementing your pointer and printing out what value it points to in a loop.
10-19-2008
Chalks

Thanks for the quick responses. I'm about to go to a computer lab where I can deal with this some more. I do have another clarifying question though:

Quote:

Originally Posted by zacs7

Code:

void *mem[256] = (void *) malloc(256);

Is an array of 256 void pointers... Not what you want. You need 1 void pointer that points to 256 bytes that you allocated, the cast on malloc() is also pointless (See the FAQ) -- but casting (void *) to (void *) does nothing...

So should I do something like this?

Code:

void *mem = malloc(256); int main() { int i = 0; for(i=0; i<256; i++) { mem[i] = NULL; } // all locations should be initialized to NULL. return 0; }

Or is it more like this?

Code:

void *mem[256]; int main() { int i = 0; for(i=0; i<256; i++) { mem[i] = malloc(1); } return 0; }

I'll be attempting both of those methods in about 2 hours. *hopes to finish tonight*
10-19-2008
Elysia

1) Mem should be inside main.
2) You should initialize them to NULL unless you allocate some more memory.
3) The ending } should most likely be on its own line to help readability.
4) You must free what you malloc. You currently are not.

And just for the sake of it...
T* vs T *: http://www.research.att.com/~bs/bs_faq2.html#whitespace
If you're interested.
10-19-2008
IceDane

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elysia

1) Mem should be inside main.
2) You should initialize them to NULL unless you allocate some more memory.
3) The ending } should most likely be on its own line to help readability.
4) You must free what you malloc. You currently are not.

And just for the sake of it...
T* vs T *: http://www.research.att.com/~bs/bs_faq2.html#whitespace
If you're interested.

There's nothing about the subject at the link you posted.

What *is* the difference?
10-19-2008
Elysia

Quote:

Originally Posted by IceDane

There's nothing about the subject at the link you posted.
What *is* the difference?

There is a difference, in the way it's written and interpreted.
To the compiler, it's the same.
10-19-2008
Chalks

ok, I've gotten mem properly malloced, but I don't really understand what this is pointing to. *mem is pointing to a block of memory 256 bytes long, right? How do I put something in that memory? I.E., if I want the 245th byte to hold the hex "4a", how do I do that?

I've tried:

Code:

void *mem = malloc(256); // I think this is the right initialization mem[245] = 71; *mem[245] = 71; (&mem)[245] = (void *)71; // gives warning without cast mem += 245; // increments by 245*4 bytes. I think? *mem = 71;

none of them work, and in fact all lines (except for those with comments) above give a warning and an error:
warning: derefrencing 'void *' pointer
error: invalid use of void expression

What is a valid use of a void expression?

Edit: Elysia, I am freeing 'mem', I just didn't put it in the above code. I was typing it in a hurry. :)
EDIT 2: Maybe I found my answer? Does this make sense to anyone:

Code:

void *mem = malloc(256); int i = 0; unsigned char *test; for(i=0; i<256; i++) { test = mem; if(i==0) *test = 71; printf("%p(%p), ", (mem)++, *test);
10-19-2008
Elysia

Since void* is a generic pointer, it means it can point to anything and the compiler doesn't know what. That's why it's undefined behavior or invalid to do stuff with it.
But in case you want to access the 245th byte, you just want to make sure to use a type whose size is 1 byte, since that would ensure that the code is correct.
If you allocate 256 bytes and each element takes 4 bytes, there cannot be 256 elements, as you understand.
That's why it's common to cast it to char*, since it's guaranteed to be 1 byte.
A pointer acts just like an array:

Code:

char* p = (char*)malloc(256); p[245 - 1] = 71; free(p);