Segmentation fault?!

[turmoil]

Hi all. I'm a hopelessly stuck C newbie. I'm trying to make a program that will read one line at a time from a file, and store each line as a char array in a singly linked list. I'm now totally stumped by a segmentation fault. Any help would be greatly appreciated. The code is as follows:

#include <stdio.h>


struct listNode {
	char data[20];
	struct listNode *nextPtr;
};

typedef struct listNode ListNode;
typedef ListNode *ListNodePtr;


int main()
{

	ListNodePtr *startPtr = NULL, newPtr, previousPtr, currentPtr;
	FILE *fp;
	fp=fopen("dictionary.dat","r");

	if (fp!=NULL){	

		while(!feof(fp)){	

			newPtr = (ListNode *)malloc(sizeof(ListNode));		

			if (newPtr!=NULL){				

				fscanf(fp,"%s",newPtr->data);				

				newPtr->nextPtr = NULL;		

				printf("%s\n",newPtr->data);

				previousPtr = NULL;

				currentPtr = *startPtr;
				while((currentPtr!=NULL)){
					previousPtr = currentPtr;
					currentPtr=currentPtr->nextPtr;
				}

				if (previousPtr == NULL){
					*startPtr = newPtr;
				}
				else {
					previousPtr->nextPtr = newPtr;
				}
			}

			else{							
				printf("\nWarning:  Not enough memory available to complete loading.\n\n");
				break;
			}

		}
	}
	else{	
		printf("\n\n\tERROR:  Dictionary file not found. Exiting.\n\n");
		exit();				
	}
	fclose (fp);
        return 0;
}

I added the printf in the middle to try to help me figure out when it was going wrong. It displays the first word in the file but none of the others.

I figure when i've got the singly linked list working, it wont be so hard to update it to a doubly linked list... hopefully.

Thanks.

[Scarlet7]

The segmentation fault is on this line

> currentPtr = *startPtr;

Memory needs to be allocated for the following pointer pointer or pointer array.

> ListNodePtr *startPtr

I'm not sure why a pointer array is being used but allocate like this:

startPtr = (ListNodePtr *) malloc(sizeof(ListNodePtr *)*10);

This will allocated an array of 10 ListNodePtr pointers.

[turmoil]

Hmmm... I don't understand.

I've tried playing around with the things you mentioned, but i'm not getting anywhere with it.

I want a single startPtr to point to the first line stored from the file as a listNode, and then pointers on each one to point to the next. I don't understand why i would need an array of ListNodePtr's.

I'm really quite confused. I've been stuck on this for a couple of days and can't figure any way around it. Please help me out!!

Thanks.

[Scarlet7]

Try something like this

int main()
{
     ListNodePtr startPtr = NULL, newPtr, previousPtr, currentPtr;
     FILE *fp;
     fp=fopen("dictionary.dat","r");

     if (fp!=NULL){     
          while(!feof(fp)){     
               newPtr = (ListNode *)malloc(sizeof(ListNode));          

               if (newPtr!=NULL){                                       
                    fscanf(fp,"%s",newPtr->data);                    
                    newPtr->nextPtr = NULL; 
    
                    if(startPtr == NULL){
                         startPtr = currentPtr = newPtr;
                    }
                    else{
                         currentPtr->nextPtr = newPtr;
                         previousPtr = currentPtr;
                         currentPtr = currentPtr->nextPtr;
                    }
               }

               else{                                   
                    printf("\nWarning:  Not enough memory available to complete loading.\n\n");
                    break;
               }
          }
     }
     else{     
          printf("\n\n\tERROR:  Dictionary file not found. Exiting.\n\n");
          exit(0);                    
     }
     fclose (fp);

     //Show contents of list
     currentPtr = startPtr;
     while(currentPtr)
     {
          printf("%s\n",currentPtr->data);
          currentPtr = currentPtr->nextPtr;
     }

    return 0;
}

[turmoil]

a/s/l?

Marry me?

Seriously, thanks heaps. I looked at that and thought it couldn't possibly work. Guess that's why i was stuck though. I don't understand at all how it works though -
currentPtr->nextPtr = newPtr;
previousPtr = currentPtr;
currentPtr = currentPtr->nextPtr;

..actually now i do. That's amazing. So simple. Thanks again Scarlet, you're a legend.

[Scarlet7]

Thanks..

I noticed a slight problem with the code on my last post. I've edited the code.

[turmoil]

One more question please, and a much more basic one too.

I'm now trying to compare a word to the words in the linked list. I have no problems traversing the list or anything, but i can't figure out what exactly i need to write to get compare the words.

eg. i have a variable 'word' with say, apple stored in it. As i compare it to currentPtr->data as it traverses, it will pass apple every time without finding/matching it. This is using the line:
if ( currentPtr->data == word )

...I have also tried
if(strcmp(currentPtr->data, word)==1)
and if(strncmp(currentPtr->data, word,n)==1)
but I think they're comparing memory addresses or the amount of memory each word uses as i'm not getting any sensible output.

So the question is, what should i be writing there? I'm told Java has a .= operator that does it - is there a C equivalent?

Thanks.

[turmoil]

Ok, thanks for reading it, but after much frustration i've managed to solve it myself. I used
if ( strncmp ( current->data , word , n ) == 0 )

where n = 20.
I found if n was small i lost accuracy and a large n value didn't stop it so hey, why not be stupidly accurate.

I didn't realise that strncmp had to be set to 0, i had previously assumed it would be boolean.

Cheers anyway.

[WaltP]

Originally posted by turmoil
Ok, thanks for reading it, but after much frustration i've managed to solve it myself. I used
if ( strncmp ( current->data , word , n ) == 0 )

where n = 20.

Actually, what you probably want is
if ( strncmp ( current->data , word , strlen(word) ) == 0 )

This will compare the two words by exactly the length of the second word and makes the if more generic.