Seg Fault AFTER the program finishes..

Below is a method that properly deletes a Professor from a list of Professors.

If this method is not called(as there are other options in the menu) then the program terminates just fine. However, after calling this method to delete a Professor, and subsequently terminating the program after seeing that the method did in fact perform delete correctly, a Seg Fault appears.

Folks in #C++ on freenode were very helpful, but we did not completely get rid of the problem. It is believed the problem may lie within the for loop with profIterator. I do know that the program runs without a hitch if there exists only one element in the list. But not for more than one element, which is where the for loop comes into play. It was suggested I create an operator<< overload and output what profIterator is returning.. but for some reason, the standard style:

Code:

ostream& operator<<(ostream& os, const Professor& P) {
   os << P.getLastName() << ", " << P.getFirstName() << endl;
}

does not compile correctly. The errors fill a large screen with 'trait' stuff.

Can you see the problem without having to implement an operator<< method? I'd be grateful if you could.

Here's the method:

Code:

// delete a specific professor
bool deleteProfessor()
{ 
  // local variable for readibility
  int size = profs.size(); 

  // handle empty list
  if ( size < 1 ) {
    cout << endl << "  The list contains " << profs.size() << " elements.\n" << endl;

    // handle non-empty list
  } else {

    // handle one element list, no need to iterate
    if ( size == 1 ) {
      cout << endl << "  Only one element in the list. Delete (y/n)? " << flush;
      char choice;                // for yes or no answer
      cin >> choice;              // get user's input
      cin.ignore( 100, '\n' );    // ignore all input to end of line

      if ( toupper( choice ) == 'Y' ) {
        // delete the only professor in the list
        profs.clear();
        cout << "\n  Professor succesfully deleted. 'P' to print.\n" << endl;
        return true; // return immediately instead of continuing
      } else {
        // notify user that no one was deleted
        cout << "\n  No element was deleted. List is intact.\n" << endl;
        return true; // return immediately instead of continuing
      }
  
      // handle larger than one element list
    } else {
      // present the list for viewing
      handlePrintList(); 

      cout << "\nWhich professor do you wish to delete (1-" << size
           << ", or 0 to quit)? " << flush;
      
      int choice;                 // for user input(which professor)
      char* option;               // for conversion of string to int
      cin >> option;              // get the user's input
      cin.ignore( 100, '\n' );    // ignore all input to end of line
      choice = atoi( option );    // convert to int for evaluation

      // quit the operation if user desires to do so
      if ( choice < 1 ) {
        cout << "\n  Quitting - returning to main menu.\n" << endl;

        // take the appropriate action as requested
      } else if ( choice >= 1 && choice <= size ) {
        // delete the chosen professor
        list<Professor>::iterator profIterator; // iterator for stepping through Professor list
        int k = 1;                     // counter used to number list items

        for ( profIterator = profs.begin();     // pointer to first element
              k != choice;                      // stop point doesn't equal input
              profIterator++, k++ )             // increment both iterator and counter
          ;   // <- purpose is to move iterator to desired location and stop/continue
          
        profs.erase( profIterator );      // erase professor at profIterator location
        // notify user of success
        cout << "\n  Professor succesfully deleted. 'P' to print.\n" << endl;
      } else {
        // error handling
        cout << "\n  Invalid input. Please try again.\n" << endl;
      }
    }
  }
  return true;
}

Thanks

EDIT: blasted.. well if anyone needs this there ya go. the problem was solved ten minutes after I posted this. Here's the correct codeblock that was causing the problem:

Code:

      int choice;                 // for user input(which professor)
      string option;              // user option for conversion of string to int
      cin >> option;              // get the user's input
      istringstream i(option);    // using stringstream 
      i >> choice;                // convert string to int

>> char* option;
In case anyone was wondering, the issue was that this variable was never initialized, so it pointed to invalid memory. Switching to string was a good choice.