reading file into a string array

[lambs4]

I'm trying to read in a bunch of strings into an array from disk and then having the program write them back to a file. My problem is that it fails while trying to read and I don't know what's causing it.

#define MAX 5

void loadfile(char * array[MAX])
{ /* Reads in file */
	int count;
	FILE * fp;

	fp = fopen("strings.txt","r");
	for(count = 0; count < MAX;count++)
	{
	fscanf(fp,"%s ",array[count]);
	}
	fclose(fp);
}

[quzah]

You have an array of character pointers, but do they actually point at anything?

Quzah.

[novacain]

Read the whole file to memory and then divide up into strings by finding the \r or \n.

Check the string array you are passing into the function as I do not think you can do that the way you are.

[lambs4]

I'm trying to initialize the array by reading the file into it. Isn't this possible with pointers?

[lambs4]

thanks, that worked.

[Salem]

while( i < MAX && fgets( buf, 1024, fp ) != NULL )  { 
    array[i] = malloc( strlen(buf) + 1 ); /*maybe you haven't allocated the strings*/ 
    strcpy( array[i++], buf ); 
}

Points to note
1. feof returns true only when some read function (in this case fgets) has previously failed.
2. you need to malloc the length of the string + 1 to reserve space for the \0

[lambs4]

I must free that memory like any other allocation, right?

[Salem]

> I must free that memory like any other allocation, right?
yes