Help implementing function

[sahtopi]

So I have a function:

char* getPlayerName();

This function is supposed to make a string, read in a name, and then return the name. I have this function:
]

char* getPlayerName()
{
    
    char* PlayerName;
    
    PlayerName = malloc(sizeof(char)*MAXPLAYERNAME);
    
    printf("Please input your name:");
    
    scanf("%s",PlayerName);
    
    return PlayerName;
}

Does anyone see problems with this?

[laserlight]

Does anyone see problems with this?

Yes:

• You forgot to check the return value of malloc: malloc could return a null pointer.
• You forgot to specify a field width for "%s" with scanf: without the field width, it is vulnerable to buffer overflow, i.e., the user could input MAXPLAYERNAME or more non-whitespace characters and they will all be stored in the dynamic array, even though there is only space for a string of length MAXPLAYERNAME - 1 at most.
• You forgot to check the return value of scanf: if scanf does not return 1 (as there is one assignment to be made), perhaps you should free the memory allocated and return a null pointer to indicate the input error.

Note that sizeof(char) is always equal to 1, so I suggest either:

char *PlayerName = malloc(sizeof(PlayerName[0]) * MAXPLAYERNAME);

or:

char *PlayerName = malloc(MAXPLAYERNAME);

Also, it is better to be explicit about an empty parameter list, i.e., this:

char* getPlayerName()

should be:

char* getPlayerName(void)

Other possible problems may involve things like whether you included <stdlib.h> and <stdio.h>, and whether you defined MAXPLAYERNAME correctly, but we cannot check these.