Thread: Segmentation fault with input test file

Hi, ive got a program that runs fine except when I run an input test file to compare differences with an output test file. It then gives me a segmentation fault. What are some of the causes of this?

ie.

a.out <input3> tmp
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

> if you really have those < and >'s in there then of course it's going to fault
Nothing wrong with the command - looks like a standard way for a program to read from one file, and write to another

> and I doubt your program has something meant to handle REDIR
Redirection is handled by the shell, not the program
All the program still sees is stdin and stdout

But for sure, bentles has some bugs, and should post some code.

there are 4 files: a header file, a list file, a main file and a another file doing the operations:

main.c....

list.c...

I know the program looks dodgy, but it works...well... mostly

Originally posted by Hammer
Haven't looked at ya code yet, but have you tried putting some printf's at key points within the code? This'll at least give you a clue about where it's going wrong.

The code works fine and there doesnt seem to be any problems whatsoever, but when using an input test file, it gives a segmentation fault. There are two input test files, one works, but i cant get the other working.

Originally posted by Hammer
Would still suggest you put from printf's in there to try and determine which function is causing the failure. Just add something like this to the start of each of function.

Code:

fprintf(stderr, "Starting function <insertfunctionnamehere>\n");

Have had a quick look through the code. I see you do some scanf's and strcpy's. Their bounds checking is dogdy, are you sure you test data doesn't exceed the array bounds?

Be careful here too:

Code:

while(strcmp(units[low]->name, unit_name) !=0)
{
       low++;
}

The unit_name variable is read from an external source and is therefore unrealiable. If the unit_name does not exist within your array (remember it's a case sensative search too), the low variable will eventually exceed the bounds for the units variable, and you'll crash&burn.

This is the test data so i cant see how it could be the size of the unit_name array thats the problem:

1
a
1
b
1
c
6
a
4
999999 a
4
2 a41 a
6
a
5
1 a
5
2 a
6
a
0

Ive inputted all this data outside the file and it works ok....one thing ive noticed is that if i do this..copy and paste all the file info....it usually prints the output from an operation a few lines down. ie. for the operation 6 that prints out all units in a, it usually prints the empty line after the operation 4 which adds 999999 to a. I dont know if this is important....

here

another thing is that the file works if i remove the last one of the '4' operations, which adds a student, which suggests the problem lies in the add_student function.