Thread: Problem with pointers and linked lists

I hope someone can help me. I am in the process of working on a linked list project. When I do everything in main (commented out right now) it works nodes are created etc... However when I do it in a function it doesn't work, I get a core dump. Am I doing something wrong with passing the pointers as parameters??

Thanks in advance,

Branden

Code:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

typedef struct node{
   int number;
   struct node *next;
   struct node *prev;
} NODE;

void createlist(NODE *head, NODE *current, int number)
{
   head = (NODE*)malloc(sizeof(NODE));
   current = head;
   current->number = 15;
   current->next = current;
   current->prev = current;
}

int main()
{
   NODE *head = NULL;
   NODE *current = NULL;

   //create the first node
   //head = malloc(sizeof(NODE));
   //current = head;
   //current->number = 15;
   //current->next = current;
   //current->prev = current;
   //end first node creation
  
 createlist(head, current, 15);
   printf("%i\n", current->number);
   return 0;
}

You need to pass the address of the pointer to make it work. This is because you change the pointer with the malloc function:

Code:

void createlist(NODE **head, NODE **current, int number)
{
   *head = (NODE*)malloc(sizeof(NODE));
   *current = *head;
   (*current)->number = 15;
   (*current)->next = *current;
   (*current)->prev = *current;
}

createlist(&head, &current, 15);

Some explanation:

In main head is a pointer to NULL.
When calling createlist a copy of the pointer is placed on the stack (it's also pointing to NULL).
In the createlist function memory is allocated and the copy of head is pointing to the allocated memory.
The original head pointer in main is still pointing to NULL.

If you pass the address of the head pointer, the createlist function has access to the original pointer by dereferencing (place * before the variable), so the allocated memory can be assigned to the original head pointer in the main function.

Same story for the "current" variable

Some more info