Pointers to pointers with arrays

Brand new member who wants help because their program is due and they're jammed up? I'm sure it has never happened before ever! To be fair I have been trying to get help from the instructor and other programmers and no one has been responding. Any how...

I'm relatively sure the problem is somewhere within the fillACat function and/or the dynamicCatArray. I'm pretty sure the problem is with the pointer/array * - but I have no idea how to fix it.

Code:

---

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

typedef struct {
        double weight;
        char name [30];
        short int neutered;
} CAT;

void fillACat (CAT *dynamicCatArray[], char *names[], int i);

CAT* makeACat () {
        CAT* result;

        result = malloc (sizeof (CAT));

        return result;
}

main () {
        char *names[6] = {"Fluffy", "Tigger", "Max", "Betty", "Cat-27" , "Jake"};
        int i;
        CAT** dynamicCatArray;

        dynamicCatArray = calloc (5, sizeof (CAT*));

        srand (time(NULL));

        for (i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
                fillACat (dynamicCatArray, names, i);
        }

        free (dynamicCatArray);
        system ("pause");
}

void fillACat (CAT *dynamicCatArray[], char *names[], int i) {
        int catName, catWeight, catNeutered;

        catName = rand () % 6;
        catWeight = rand () % 30;
        catNeutered = rand () % 2;

        strcpy (dynamicCatArray[i]->name, names[catName]);
        dynamicCatArray[i]->neutered = catNeutered;
        dynamicCatArray[i]->weight = catWeight;
}

---

Any help that anyone can offer would be appreciated. I apologize in advance for any rules I might be breaking. Thanks :)

Your dynamic array is an array of five pointers-to-cat, yet you are treating it as though it held five actual cats. It does not. Either you want what you have, in which case you need to make those pointers-to-cat point to an actual cat at some point along the way; or you really just wanted an array of cats, in which case you have one extra *.

Ah ha! I see. You are very helpful :). Thank you.

A couple of notes:

1. The bare bones of a c program are:

Code:

---

int main (void){

    return (0);
}

---

Read the FAQ-main declaration for the discussion as to why.

2. You never check the return of malloc and calloc to see if the allocation of memory actually worked. This is an extremely poor practice and is something you should work very hard to rid yourself of. If the allocation fails you will have a NULL pointer which will cause problems later in your code.