pointer problems (probably something dumb)

i'm new to serious programming and have been stumped by this weird behavior all morning

in a nutshell: i pass a pointer in main to a public class function. it sets the pointer to point at a private dynamical class array and returns the array's length. inside the function, everything is fine -- i can access the elements of the array using the pointer. but once i'm back in main, i try to access the values using the pointer, but i see garbage.

i will try and attach the relevant bits of code.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

from "synapses.h"

Code:

class synapses {

 private:
  
  int actcount[SIZE]; //contains the current length of each dynamical array actsyn[i]
  int *actsyn[SIZE]; //each of these points to a dynamical array initialized with "new"
  //SIZE is a global int

 public:
  int getpost(char p, int pre, int *post);
  //More declarations....

};
int synapses::getpost(char p, int pre, int *post){
  
  int res = -1;
  switch(p){
  case 'a':
    post = actsyn[pre]; //set pointer to point at dynamical array initalized with "new"
    res=actcount[pre]; //length of dynamical array
    break;
  case 's':
    post = supsyn[pre];
    res=supcount[pre];
    break;
  default: cout<<"synapses.getpost called with invalid char arg"<<endl;
    exit(1);
  }
  for (int i=0; i<res; i++){
    cout<<post[i]<<" ";  //**This statement prints the expected values 
  }

  return res;
}

from "main"

Code:

	  int *wack;
	  int foo = (*connectivity).getpost('a',goo,wack); //goo is an int
          //connectivity is a pointer to a synapses object
	  for(int k = 0; k<foo; k++){
	    cout<<wack[k]<<" ";  //**This is the statement that prints garbage
	  }

Originally Posted by philoroggae

in a nutshell: i pass a pointer in main to a public class function. it sets the pointer to point at a private dynamical class array and returns the array's length. inside the function, everything is fine -- i can access the elements of the array using the pointer. but once i'm back in main, i try to access the values using the pointer, but i see garbage.

In other words, your pointer is pointing to what it was prior to calling the function. Pointers are passed by value, so if you want to reset the pointer in the function, make the function take an int** (pointer to pointer to int).

Pointers are passed by value, so if you want to reset the pointer in the function, make the function take an int** (pointer to pointer to int).

Since this is C++, a simpler change would be to pass your pointer by reference.

Incidentally, you can write connectivity->getpost('a',goo,wack) instead of (*connectivity).getpost('a',goo,wack).

Shows you how much I use raw pointers - I'm still "Thinking in C" regarding them...

it works now. thanks for helping me out!