Thread: Dereferencing pointer to incomplete type on a linked list

Hi, I'm pretty new at programming and I'm getting into linked lists. As part of a word database type thing I'm writing a function searchWord that calls a function named searchNodeWord . searchNodeWord runs through a singly linked list and assigns the value of the correct node (based on a parameter called strKey) to a parameter called pResult. searchWord should then print one of the strings in the node stored in pResult.

I't works fine until I try to printf the string in the pResult in [i]searchWord[\i]. I can use printf while I'm still in searchNodeWord just to see that I got the right node, but I can't seem to use it outside of the function. The compiler gives me a "Dereferencing pointer to incomplete type" error at that point.

Here's the relevant code:

Code:

void searchNodeWord(sWordType *pFirst, string50 strKey, sWordType **pResult)
{
     printf("\n");
     sWordType *pRun = NULL; //sWordType is the typedef i use for my nodes
     pRun = pFirst;
     char cChoice = '0';
     int nLoop = 1;
     
     do
     {
          if( pRun && strcmpi(pRun->strWord, strKey) == 0 )
          {
              printf("Match Found: \n");
              printf("Entry: %s\n", pRun->strWord);
              printf("Translation: %s\n", pRun->strTrans);
              
              printf("\nIs this the correct entry? (Y/N)");
              fflush(stdin);
              scanf("%c", &cChoice);
              
              if( cChoice == 'N' || cChoice == 'n' )
              {
                  pRun = pRun->pNext;
              }
              else if ( cChoice == 'Y' || cChoice == 'y' )
                   {
                        *pResult = pRun;
                        printf("-->%s\n", (*pResult)->strWord); //This works fine
                        nLoop = 0;
                        /*
                        printf("\n");
                        displayDetails(pRun);
                        */
                   }
              //some other irrelevant code follows
}

Code:

void searchWord(sWordType *pFirst) //pFirst points to the head of a singly linked list
{
     string50 strKey;                         //typedef char string50[51]
     sWordType *pResult = NULL;     //sWordType is the typedef i use for my nodes
     
     printf("----|SEARCH WORD|----\n");
     printf("Current lexicon entires:\n");
     displayList(pFirst);                                 //Lists all available entries in linked list
     printf("\n");
     printf("Enter word to search: ");
     fflush(stdin);
     scanf("%s", &strKey);
     
     searchNodeWord(pFirst, strKey, &pResult);  //pResult should be updated to proper address

     //ERROR OCCURS AT NEXT LINE
     printf("-->%s\n", pResult->strWord);
     printf("\n");
}

Can anyone tell me why I cant seem to use that address fromm outside of searchNodeWord?
Thanks in advance.

Oh, hahah. I changed pWord to pResult while i was posting to make things easier to read.
They're all actually pWord on the actual code.

Thanks for pointing that out. Lemme edit that.

EDIT: Problem solved. I figured out how to return pointers from functions and did it that way instead. Thanks anyway.