Having difficulty understanding strtok()

**navitude** · 03-01-2013

I am using strtok() for the first time to tokenize a string from a file. From checking, I can sucessfully open then file and read the whole string from the file and input it into a string variable.

What I am having trouble with is tokenizing the string properly and storing it into a 2d string.

When I check by testing each iteration, I "print" through ncurses the same thing over and over agian. It seems that I am able to tokenize the first section of the string. However it seems that I cannot tokenize the next part of the string when moving to the next iteration.

Code:

  /* iteration counter 1 */
  int counterOne;
  
  /* room value 2 dimensional string variable and initialization of first
  dimension*/ 
  char * * roomValue = malloc(sizeof(char *) *151);
  
  /* iteration to initailize second dimension */
  for(counterOne = 0; counterOne != 151; counterOne++)
  {
    roomValue[counterOne] = malloc(sizeof(char *) *151);
  }

  /* token string variable */
  char * token = malloc(sizeof(char *) * 151);

  /* parsing of file input sting string by iterarations */
  for(counterOne = 0; counterOne != 151; counterOne++)
  {
    /* tokenize by iteration */
    token = strtok(fileInput, " ");
    
    /* copy token to room value string */
    strcpy(roomValue[counterOne], token);
   
    /* test per iteration */ 
    mvaddstr(counterOne, 0,roomValue[counterOne]);
  }

The only things I can think of is that:
a) I am not using strtok() correctly,
b) I am not coping the token to the 2d string correctly,
c) The logic that I am using is wrong?

I would really apprecaite some insight as to what the problem is. Also, thanks for taking time to help ahead of time!

**Tclausex** · 03-01-2013

Successive calls of strtok() on the same string should be passed NULL instead of the file-pointer again. If you pass a file-pointer, then the last location which strtok saves is replaced with the new.

**jimblumberg** · 03-01-2013

You may want to study the following link: strtok() and notice that you don't need to allocate memory for the pointer used in strtok(). Your present code has a memory leak because of this issue. Also for now you may want to forgo the dynamic memory and use statically allocated arrays until you have mastered strtok().

Jim

**AndiPersti** · 03-01-2013

Code:

char * * roomValue = malloc(sizeof(char *) *151);
  
/* iteration to initailize second dimension */
for(counterOne = 0; counterOne != 151; counterOne++)
{
    roomValue[counterOne] = malloc(sizeof(char *) *151);
}

/* token string variable */
char * token = malloc(sizeof(char *) * 151);

"roomValue[counterOne]" is a pointer to char. Therefore you would need to allocate memory for 151 chars and not for 151 pointers to char. Same for "token". In your case you are lucky and sizeof(char*) is probably always bigger than sizeof(char) and you just allocate too much memory.

To avoid this you should use the idiom:

Code:

Type *var = malloc(sizeof(*var) * n);
// for example:
int *a = malloc(sizeof(*a));
double *b = malloc(sizeof(*b) * 10);
struct some_struct *c = malloc(sizeof(*c) * 50);

where "Type" is any type, "n" the number of elements (if needed) and sizeof(*var) will result in the correct size for the object "var" points to. This has the advantage that you can change the type whenever you want to and the compiler will still be able to determine the correct size.

Bye, Andreas

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