Thread: array of pointers/pointer arithmetic

Indeed ItC... i think i was mixed up with the notation show at the bottom of this fragment:

Code:

char *a[2];
	char *b[2];
	char **all[2] = {a, b};
	a[0]= (char *)malloc(20);
	a[1]= (char *)malloc(20);
	b[0]= (char *)malloc(20);
	b[1]= (char *)malloc(20);

	*(a + 0) = "AEI";
	*(a + 1) = "OUY";

	printf("string: %s\n", a[0]);
	printf("string: %s\n", a[1]);
	printf("char: %c\n", *(*(a + 0) + 0));
	printf("char: %c\n", *(*(a + 0) + 1));
	printf("char: %c\n", *(*(a + 0) + 2));

	*(*(all + 1) + 0) = "DOG";
	*(*(all + 1) + 1) = "CAT";

	printf("string: %s\n", b[0]);
	printf("string: %s\n", b[1]);
	printf("char: %c\n", *(*(*(all + 1) + 0) + 0));
	printf("char: %c\n", *(*(*(all + 1) + 0) + 1));
	printf("char: %c\n", *(*(*(all + 1) + 0) + 2));
	printf("char: %c\n", *(*(*(all + 1) + 1) + 0));
	printf("char: %c\n", *(*(*(all + 1) + 1) + 1));
	printf("char: %c\n", *(*(*(all + 1) + 1) + 2));

Which Outputs:

string: AEI
string: OUY
char: A
char: E
char: I
string: DOG
string: CAT
char: D
char: O
char: G
char: C
char: A
char: T

Many hours later I have "completed" the main program with one annoying warning about passing non const data to const parameters...

Code:

int main()
{
void test(const char * const *[]);
char *a[MAX];
char *b[MAX];
char *c[MAX;
char **all[MAXMEMBER] = {a, b, c};
test(all);
}

void test(const char * const *total[])
{
; //modify individual characters or the string as a whole is an error... but still a warning
}

Which gives me a "passing argument 1 of ‘test’ from incompatible pointer type" in eclipse and a similar warning in gcc. I am thinking some kind of cast is appropriate here.

You're throwing away (at least) 40 bytes of memory also -- those malloc's that you do at the top vanish when you do *(a+0) = "AEI", as this changes the pointer to point to read-only memory and not the 20 characters you allocated. If you want to copy strings, you use strcpy.

Now, now, after correctly using all those complicated pointer initializations instead of indexing you are getting the type of the argument to test() wrong.
Mull it over and it should be clear to you soon and yes you are wasting 80 bytes of heap storage by not using them.

Originally Posted by tabstop

You're throwing away (at least) 40 bytes of memory also -- those malloc's that you do at the top vanish when you do *(a+0) = "AEI", as this changes the pointer to point to read-only memory and not the 20 characters you allocated. If you want to copy strings, you use strcpy.

whoops... i typed the example in haste and didn't notice that... In the main program i use the malloc to allocate the memory so I can copy data from a file into different char arrays byte to byte.... but i see how using strncmp would be a whole lot quicker... wish i'd known that earlier :P