How to copy value from MySQL result to string pointer?

[fekkesh]

Hi
I'm trying to copy a value from a MySQL query result to a string pointer with no success. As soon as I call "mysql_free_result" my variable is empty! If I print the variable before "mysql_free_result" it is there! Here is a snippet of my code:

/* connect to db here */
char *name;

if (mysql_query(conn, "SELECT firstname FROM employees WHERE id = 8") != 0) {
        fprintf(stderr, "%s\n", mysql_error(conn));
        } else {
        res = mysql_use_result(conn);
                if ((row = mysql_fetch_row(res)) != NULL) {
                name = row[0];
                mysql_free_result(res);
                printf("%s\n",name);
}
mysql_close(conn);

I don't quite understand how to copy the value to "name". I guess "name" is pointing to something that does not exist after "mysql_free_result". How do I keep the value in "name"?

[laserlight]

You would need to allocate space for the string, say with malloc(), and then copy over the characters, say with strncpy() or strcpy(). Presumably the MySQL API gives you some way of determining the length of the string so you can allocate space (e.g., it might just be a null terminated string, so strlen() would do).

[fekkesh]

Thanks!
It worked well!