Weird error, possible related to strings, pointers, stupidity, all of the above

Hey, I'm working on this program and I have two modules. One is a job class which contains a name. The other is a scheduling class.

I'm having this problem where I put a job through my job_copy method and the name comes out scrambled-- but it doesn't happen within the job_copy method itself.

Here is my output:
Before job_copy-- name: name2
In job_copy-- name: name2
After job_copy-- name: �D(�����h(��Z���/(��

Here is the relevant code in the Scheduler class:

Code:

---

Job* SC_removeJob(Scheduler* sc){


        /* WHAT IS GOING ON?????? */
        Job* j;

        printf("Before job_copy-- name: %s\n", sc->job->name);
        j = job_copy(sc->job);

        printf("After job_copy-- name: %s\n", j->name);

---

and here is the job_copy method:

Code:

---

Job* job_copy(Job *j2){

        Job* j1 = job_alloc();
        char new[5]; /*fix this?? */
        j1->name = strcpy( new, j2->name);
        j1->startTime = j2->startTime;
        j1->CPUTime = j2->CPUTime;
        j1->CPUTimeLeft = j2->CPUTimeLeft;
        j1->IOOperations = j2->IOOperations;
        j1->priority = j2->priority;

        j1->timeSlice = j2->timeSlice;

        j1->opsPerMs = j2->opsPerMs;

        printf("In job_copy-- name: %s\n", j1->name);
        return j1;
}

---

I'm very confused as to where the error is occurring.
Any help = 5 Schrute bucks.

Thanks!

Most likely because you're copying the new char array (which is full of jibberish) into j1's name member and most likely causing a buffer overrun in the process, as well.
What do you think it does? If you want duplicate the job, then copy j2's name into j1'2 name.

This is assuming the name member is an array or a pointer to allocated memory.

Well, new isn't full of jibberish when it's been written by j2->name, but "new" is not going to be there any longer when you leave the function [well, the physical memory in the machine is still there, but it has been made available for the compiler to store other things in, so it will get overwritten with "gibberish" if you ever call some other function - such as printf()].

You need to allocate memory for the name, and then use strcpy() to copy the original name into the new variable.

--
Mats

Oops, mixed up source and destination for strcpy.

What pray is job_alloc() ?

Got it.
Thanks matsp.