Thread: Pointer Problems

I'm having issues understanding how to use pointers, or so my compiler is telling me. Anyway, I'm trying to simply take whatever Attributes are given to me in the parameters, malloc some space for them so they don't disappear at the end of the function, and then set the Attribute part of a SymEntry to reference that newly allocated space.

Code:

void SetAttr(struct SymEntry *AnEntry, void *Attributes) {
	AnEntry->Attributes = malloc(sizeof(Attributes*));
	AnEntry->Attributes = *Attributes;
};

While I'm at it, how do I retrieve that attribute?

Code:

void * GetAttr(struct SymEntry *AnEntry) {
	void *Att = malloc(sizeof(AnEntry->Attributes));
	Att = *(AnEntry-Attributes);
	return Att;
};

This is probably really basic stuff to you guys, but I'm really lost here due to lack of any experience with pointers. Thanks in advance.

oh and here are the errors cc is giving to me:
SymTab.c: In function ‘SetAttr’:
SymTab.c:113: error: expected expression before ‘)’ token
SymTab.c:114: warning: dereferencing ‘void *’ pointer
SymTab.c:114: error: void value not ignored as it ought to be
SymTab.c: In function ‘GetAttr’:
SymTab.c:119: error: ‘Attributes’ undeclared (first use in this function)
SymTab.c:119: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
SymTab.c:119: error: for each function it appears in.)

Hmmm. Where to start...
First off, how would you call SetAttr?

The first error:

Code:

void SetAttr(struct SymEntry *AnEntry, void *Attributes) {
	AnEntry->Attributes = malloc(sizeof(Attributes*)); // This doesn't make sense, you're allocating MORE space for a void pointer? You've got room in AnEntry already
	AnEntry->Attributes = *Attributes;  // You can't dereference void pointers. Cast to the type you want then dereference.
}*snip semi-colon*

The second error:

Code:

void * GetAttr(struct SymEntry *AnEntry) {
	void *Att = malloc(sizeof(AnEntry->Attributes));
	Att = *(AnEntry->Attributes);
	return Att;
}*snip semi-colon*

Not that the extra semi-colons are errors anyway...

Having a rough idea what you're trying to do:

Code:

void SetAttr(struct SymEntry * AnEntry, void * Attributes, size_t len)
{
   AnEntry->Attributes = malloc(len);
   memcpy(AnEntry->Attributes, Attributes, len);      /* careful, pointer members of 'Attributes'
                                                         may be free'd later */
}

void * GetAttr(struct SymEntry * AnEntry)
{
   return AnEntry->Attributes;
}

Or you could just set Attributes to the passed 'Attributes' argument in SetAttr() and be done with it.

Originally Posted by TieFighter

I think that helped a lot - does memcpy just make a duplicate of whatever your copying in a different location in memory? That is slick compared to what I was trying to do before.

I do have a question about the code segment you suggested above though, is len the length of something in particular? I'm not allowed to change the function signature like that, unfortunately. I can tell you that the user of the function is supposed to worry about memory allocation and freeing space of attributes on their own based on what the driver file does with it.

In that case, your life just got a whole lot easier:

Code:

void SetAttr(struct SymEntry * AnEntry, void * Attributes)
{
   AnEntry->Attributes = Attributes;
}

void * GetAttr(struct SymEntry * AnEntry)
{
   return AnEntry->Attributes;
}

Anyway, 'len' was the length of the Attributes argument. So you could pass whatever type argument, or structure and it would be copied. That puts the onus on the user to know what type it is when GetAttr() returns (and cast appropriately). Example usage could have been:

Code:

/* ... */

struct Attributes AnAttr;
AnAttr->Value1 = 2;
AnAttr->Value2 = 1;

SetAttr(Entry, &someStructure, sizeof(someStructure));

/* ... */
struct Attributes * something = NULL;
something = GetAttr(Entry);

printf("Value is %d\n", AnAttr->Value1);

Of course, whatever method you choose you still want to do error checking so you don't dereference NULL. That is... *(NULL) or NULL->Value1 is BAD.