Thread: Correct way of accessing pointer variables of structure

  1. #1
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    Correct way of accessing pointer variables of structure

    Hi ,

    Can any body explain me the wrong thing happening in below code.

    It is giving me exception.

    Code:
    #include<stdlib.h>
    #include<stdio.h>
    
    struct s
    {
    	int a;
     char *s;
    };
    
    int main()
    {
    	struct s *st;
    
    	st->s = (char *) malloc(sizeof(10));
    
    	st->s = "bargi";
    	printf("%s",st->s);
    	getchar();
    
    
    	
    }
    Please explain the wrong thing and the correct way to do it....??

    Thanks
    Bargi

  2. #2
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    Hi,

    It is giving me memory access violation.....but I am allocating it memory ???

    Thanks
    bargi

  3. #3
    and the Hat of Guessing tabstop's Avatar
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    You do not have a struct to play with. st is a pointer to a struct s, which means that if you happened to have a struct s hanging around, st could point to it. Since you don't have a struct s, st can't point to anything (and doesn't).

    You could either not make st a pointer (and just declare a struct s normally) or declare a struct s separately and make st point to it.

  4. #4
    C++まいる!Cをこわせ!
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    Quote Originally Posted by Adak View Post
    io.h certainly IS included in some modern compilers. It is no longer part of the standard for C, but it is nevertheless, included in the very latest Pelles C versions.
    Quote Originally Posted by Salem View Post
    You mean it's included as a crutch to help ancient programmers limp along without them having to relearn too much.

    Outside of your DOS world, your header file is meaningless.

  5. #5
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    hi,

    I have used this:

    st = (struct *) malloc(sizeof(struct s));
    Now it's running fine....
    My question is that....If I have to use pointer variable to access structure members than every time I have to allocate m/m dynamically ??
    Or there is one time solution for it

    Thanks

  6. #6
    C++まいる!Cをこわせ!
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    No, because it's a pointer. All it needs is a valid address (which may or may not come from malloc).
    Code:
    int x;
    int* p = &x;
    *x = 5;
    Just as this work, so will it with structs. You should properly learn pointers before using them.
    Quote Originally Posted by Adak View Post
    io.h certainly IS included in some modern compilers. It is no longer part of the standard for C, but it is nevertheless, included in the very latest Pelles C versions.
    Quote Originally Posted by Salem View Post
    You mean it's included as a crutch to help ancient programmers limp along without them having to relearn too much.

    Outside of your DOS world, your header file is meaningless.

  7. #7
    and the Hat of Guessing tabstop's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bargi View Post
    hi,

    I have used this:



    Now it's running fine....
    My question is that....If I have to use pointer variable to access structure members than every time I have to allocate m/m dynamically ??
    Or there is one time solution for it

    Thanks
    Of course you don't have to dynamically allocate memory; you can make the pointer point to a pre-existing structure.
    Code:
    struct s foo;
    struct s *fooptr;
    fooptr = &foo;
    Of course, why you would want to do so does not appear (but the same could be said for your other method too).

  8. #8
    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
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    The non-dynamic, local stack version:
    Code:
    #include<stdlib.h>
    #include<stdio.h>
    #include<string.h>
    
    struct s
    {
    	int a;
     char *s;
    };
    
    int main()
    {
    	struct s st;
    
    	st.s = malloc(10);
    
    /*	st->s = "bargi";     <-- this is not C  */
    	strcpy(st.s,"bargi");	
    	printf("%s",st.s);
    
    	return 0;	
    }
    Last edited by MK27; 02-16-2009 at 12:20 PM.
    C programming resources:
    GNU C Function and Macro Index -- glibc reference manual
    The C Book -- nice online learner guide
    Current ISO draft standard
    CCAN -- new CPAN like open source library repository
    3 (different) GNU debugger tutorials: #1 -- #2 -- #3
    cpwiki -- our wiki on sourceforge

  9. #9
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    There are actually three errors and one potential pitfall in this code.

    First, you are creating an uninitialized pointer to a structure. I think you meant do just say:
    Code:
    	s st;

    Second, you are creating a buffer of 4 bytes, the size of an int, instead of "10".
    Code:
    	st->s = (char *) malloc(sizeof(10));
    If you wanted to create an array of 10 bytes, you would just say
    Code:
    	st->s = (char *) malloc(10);
    or
    Code:
    	st->s = (char *) malloc(10 * sizeof(char));
    That is still risky though as it is not tied to the length of the string (if you later changed the string length, you would also have to update the buffer). So better than that, you could write
    Code:
    	st->s = (char *) malloc(strlen("bargi") * sizeof(char) + 1 /* terminator */ );
    Still better though, you could use the strdup function, which does all that for you:
    Code:
    	st->s = (char *) strdup("bargi");
    The third bug is that after creating memory for a string, you leaked that buffer when you assigned st->s to a new const string "bargi".

    You don't state the actual crash, but it was probably due to dereferencing the uninitialized st pointer

  10. #10
    C++まいる!Cをこわせ!
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    strdup is non-standard, so it should be avoided.
    And an easier version of
    st->s = (char *) malloc(strlen("bargi") * sizeof(char) + 1 /* terminator */ );
    is just
    st->s = malloc( sizeof("bargi") );
    sizeof(char) is always 1, so might as well omit that one. And sizeof on a string literal works AND it includes the terminating null char, as well. Happy day!
    Quote Originally Posted by Adak View Post
    io.h certainly IS included in some modern compilers. It is no longer part of the standard for C, but it is nevertheless, included in the very latest Pelles C versions.
    Quote Originally Posted by Salem View Post
    You mean it's included as a crutch to help ancient programmers limp along without them having to relearn too much.

    Outside of your DOS world, your header file is meaningless.

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