Thread: A problem with pointers

  1. #1
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Posts
    6

    A problem with pointers

    Hi. I'm a beginner in C and I'm having a problem in a function. It's maybe an obvious thing but I can't see what it is. The program compiles fine, the problem is in the expected result.

    I parse a file with 2 columns of words (key and value). For each line, I store the key in a hash trie, and the associated value is stored in the last node of the key in the trie.

    The function 'followlinks()' receives a word, creates the nodes/edges in trie, and returns the last node in the path. The node has a 'data' field to store a value. The problem is that it looks that the value stored in the nodes gets overriden with the value in each subsequent line processed. I suspect it's I'm messing things up with pointers.

    I'd massively appreciate any hints. Here is some of the code. If you need it i can attach the 2 files.

    Code:
    int main(int argc, char **argv) {
        char s[LINESZ];
        hashtrie *ht = new_hashtrie();
        FILE *in = fopen(WORDFILE, "r");  /* e.g. /usr/share/dict/words */
        char *m; 
        if (!in) {
          perror(WORDFILE);
          return 1;
        }
      
    while (fgets(s, LINESZ, in)) {
        int len=strlen(s);
        trienode *node;
        if (len) { 
        char *p;
        s[len-1]='\0'; 
          
        p = strtok (s,"\t");  /* splits string using tab delimiter */
        node=followlinks(ht, 0, p, 1);  	/* add the key in colum1 to the trie */
        
        p = strtok (NULL, "\t");  /* gets the second part of the string i.e. the value */  
        node->data=p; /* assigns the value to the returned node */
        printf(node->data);  	    	
        }
      }
      fclose(in);
    ...
    Here is the code that creates the links (i.e. edges) in the trie:

    Code:
    trienode *followlink(hashtrie *ht, trienode *start, char c, int create) {
      trielink **a = ht->links + hash(start, c);
      while (*a) {
        if (((*a)->source == start) && ((*a)->label == c))
          return (*a)->destination;
        a = &((*a)->next);
      }
      if (!create) return 0;
      /* If I reach this point means that 'create' value is 1 */
      *a = malloc(sizeof(trielink));
      (*a)->source = start;
      (*a)->label = c;
      (*a)->destination = malloc(sizeof(trienode));
      (*a)->destination->data = 0;
      return (*a)->destination;  
    }
    
    trienode *followlinks(hashtrie *ht, trienode *start, char *s, int create) {
      while (*s) {
        start = followlink(ht, start, *s++, create);
        if (!start) break;
      }
      return start;
    }
    And here are the definitions of the structs that appear above:

    Code:
    typedef struct trienode { void *data;} trienode;
    
    typedef struct trielink {
      struct trielink *next;
      trienode *source;
      char label;
      trienode *destination;
    } trielink;
    Thanks
    Virginia

  2. #2
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Oct 2001
    Posts
    2,934
    > node->data=p; /* assigns the value to the returned node */
    You assign the address of p to data, but what you really want is to copy the string at p. But first you need to allocate some memory for this string. So to do this:
    Code:
    node->data = malloc(strlen(p)+1);
    strcpy(node->data, p);
    And don't forget to #include <string.h> at the top, if you haven't already.

  3. #3
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Posts
    6
    swoopy, many thanks for the reply. That solved the problem . I understand now the mistake I was making. Thanks.

    Best
    Last edited by vsla; 10-10-2007 at 04:18 AM.

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