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Heap corruption?!

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c++debuggingperformancehelpquestion
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  • N Nader Elshehabi

    Hello Thanks for replying. Well, the first coder didn't work, while the second did. Yet, that makes a buffer of N chars. That's not what I want. What if the user inputs n+1 chars. I tried it and it made the same heap corruption error. Also what if I dynamically reallocate my array -or pointer-?? If you got more details or point me to some article about this issue, I'd be grateful. Thanks again.

    Regards:rose:

    Z Offline
    Z Offline
    Zac Howland
    wrote on last edited by
    #6

    Nader Elshehabi wrote:

    Well, the first coder didn't work, while the second did.

    The first code has another problem due to the fact that cin's operator>> will pull in 2 characters even if you only typed 1 (the character you typed and a '\0' to terminate the string). If you are only trying to pull in 1 character, the cin.getc() would work better.

    Nader Elshehabi wrote:

    Yet, that makes a buffer of N chars. That's not what I want. What if the user inputs n+1 chars.

    You will not be able to use the operator>> to do this (at least not yet ... as I said, the new proposal for the C++ standard has all overloaded operators that deal with char* now also overloaded for string). What you can do is iterate through it:

    char ch;
    string input;
    while ((ch = cin.getc()) != '\n')
    {
       input += ch;
    }
    

    That will prevent any possibility of a buffer overflow issue, but will also be VERY slow (in comparison to pulling down a whole set of data at once).

    If you decide to become a software engineer, you are signing up to have a 1/2" piece of silicon tell you exactly how stupid you really are for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week Zac

    N S 2 Replies Last reply
    0
    • Z Zac Howland

      Nader Elshehabi wrote:

      Well, the first coder didn't work, while the second did.

      The first code has another problem due to the fact that cin's operator>> will pull in 2 characters even if you only typed 1 (the character you typed and a '\0' to terminate the string). If you are only trying to pull in 1 character, the cin.getc() would work better.

      Nader Elshehabi wrote:

      Yet, that makes a buffer of N chars. That's not what I want. What if the user inputs n+1 chars.

      You will not be able to use the operator>> to do this (at least not yet ... as I said, the new proposal for the C++ standard has all overloaded operators that deal with char* now also overloaded for string). What you can do is iterate through it:

      char ch;
      string input;
      while ((ch = cin.getc()) != '\n')
      {
         input += ch;
      }
      

      That will prevent any possibility of a buffer overflow issue, but will also be VERY slow (in comparison to pulling down a whole set of data at once).

      If you decide to become a software engineer, you are signing up to have a 1/2" piece of silicon tell you exactly how stupid you really are for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week Zac

      N Offline
      N Offline
      Nader Elshehabi
      wrote on last edited by
      #7

      Hello Thanks again for your reply! I got two more questions:-D. Take a look at this code;

      char* MyText = new char[5];
      cin>>MyText;
      MyText = new char[10];
      delete[] MyText;

      Now , I called a second new without deleting the first one. Is there a leak here?? What if I didn't call a delete at all!! Once my program finishes and closes. Will the memory be freed? Or will it be permanently locked until reboot?

      Regards:rose:

      D Z 2 Replies Last reply
      0
      • N Nader Elshehabi

        Hello Thanks again for your reply! I got two more questions:-D. Take a look at this code;

        char* MyText = new char[5];
        cin>>MyText;
        MyText = new char[10];
        delete[] MyText;

        Now , I called a second new without deleting the first one. Is there a leak here?? What if I didn't call a delete at all!! Once my program finishes and closes. Will the memory be freed? Or will it be permanently locked until reboot?

        Regards:rose:

        D Offline
        D Offline
        David Crow
        wrote on last edited by
        #8

        Nader Elshehabi wrote:

        Is there a leak here??

        Yes.

        Nader Elshehabi wrote:

        Will the memory be freed?

        Yes.


        "Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates. There's plenty of movement, but you never know if it's going to be forward, backwards, or sideways." - H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

        "Judge not by the eye but by the heart." - Native American Proverb

        N 1 Reply Last reply
        0
        • N Nader Elshehabi

          Hello Thanks again for your reply! I got two more questions:-D. Take a look at this code;

          char* MyText = new char[5];
          cin>>MyText;
          MyText = new char[10];
          delete[] MyText;

          Now , I called a second new without deleting the first one. Is there a leak here?? What if I didn't call a delete at all!! Once my program finishes and closes. Will the memory be freed? Or will it be permanently locked until reboot?

          Regards:rose:

          Z Offline
          Z Offline
          Zac Howland
          wrote on last edited by
          #9

          Nader Elshehabi wrote:

          Now , I called a second new without deleting the first one. Is there a leak here??

          Are you coming from a Java/C# background by chance? Yes, this will result in a memory leak. Whenever you use new, you must have a delete call to match it. Having 2 calls to new and only 1 call to delete means here is a leak.

          Nader Elshehabi wrote:

          What if I didn't call a delete at all!! Once my program finishes and closes. Will the memory be freed? Or will it be permanently locked until reboot?

          When the program exits its memory will be freed. You do NOT want to rely on this, though. Always clean up your memory properly.

          If you decide to become a software engineer, you are signing up to have a 1/2" piece of silicon tell you exactly how stupid you really are for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week Zac

          N 1 Reply Last reply
          0
          • D David Crow

            Nader Elshehabi wrote:

            Is there a leak here??

            Yes.

            Nader Elshehabi wrote:

            Will the memory be freed?

            Yes.


            "Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates. There's plenty of movement, but you never know if it's going to be forward, backwards, or sideways." - H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

            "Judge not by the eye but by the heart." - Native American Proverb

            N Offline
            N Offline
            Nader Elshehabi
            wrote on last edited by
            #10

            Hello Short, and straight answers!! Thanks:-D

            Regards:rose:

            1 Reply Last reply
            0
            • Z Zac Howland

              Nader Elshehabi wrote:

              Now , I called a second new without deleting the first one. Is there a leak here??

              Are you coming from a Java/C# background by chance? Yes, this will result in a memory leak. Whenever you use new, you must have a delete call to match it. Having 2 calls to new and only 1 call to delete means here is a leak.

              Nader Elshehabi wrote:

              What if I didn't call a delete at all!! Once my program finishes and closes. Will the memory be freed? Or will it be permanently locked until reboot?

              When the program exits its memory will be freed. You do NOT want to rely on this, though. Always clean up your memory properly.

              If you decide to become a software engineer, you are signing up to have a 1/2" piece of silicon tell you exactly how stupid you really are for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week Zac

              N Offline
              N Offline
              Nader Elshehabi
              wrote on last edited by
              #11

              Hello

              Zac Howland wrote:

              Are you coming from a Java/C# background by chance?

              Well, somehow:)! I was a good old timer C++ programmer:((. But last time I ever wrote C++ code was more than 3 years ago. So I got really rusty, coming back these days to C++ as a new comer. So, while refreshing all that good ol' C++ of mine, it's nice to have you guys around;) Thanks again.

              Extra Regards:rose:

              1 Reply Last reply
              0
              • N Nader Elshehabi

                Hello Looks like my C++ is getting really rusty. While playing a bit in a console project the following code gave me a strange heap corruption error.

                #include

                using namespace std;

                void main()
                {
                char* MyText = new char;
                cin>>MyText;
                delete[] MyText;
                }

                It's not even an exception. Sometimes it says "Windows have set a breakpoint in your application because of a heap error." And a break point appears somewhere in the iostream file. Other times, an ugly error message appears saying "HEAP CORRUPTION DETECTED after a normal block. CRT detected that application wrote to memory after end of heap buffer.", Any clue??

                Regards:rose:

                S Offline
                S Offline
                Stephen Hewitt
                wrote on last edited by
                #12

                Try this instead. #include <iostream> #include <iomanip>   int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {     using namespace std;       char *pChar = new char[2];     cin >> setw(2) >> pChar;     delete [] pChar;       return 0; } You're reading too many charcters: you've got room for a NULL terminator (a string of zero length!) but your reading more and getting a buffer overrun. My code tells the IO classes how big the buffer is so it will not overrun it. If you only want to read a single char you could try doing this (in your code): cin >> *MyText;

                Steve

                N 1 Reply Last reply
                0
                • Z Zac Howland

                  Nader Elshehabi wrote:

                  Well, the first coder didn't work, while the second did.

                  The first code has another problem due to the fact that cin's operator>> will pull in 2 characters even if you only typed 1 (the character you typed and a '\0' to terminate the string). If you are only trying to pull in 1 character, the cin.getc() would work better.

                  Nader Elshehabi wrote:

                  Yet, that makes a buffer of N chars. That's not what I want. What if the user inputs n+1 chars.

                  You will not be able to use the operator>> to do this (at least not yet ... as I said, the new proposal for the C++ standard has all overloaded operators that deal with char* now also overloaded for string). What you can do is iterate through it:

                  char ch;
                  string input;
                  while ((ch = cin.getc()) != '\n')
                  {
                     input += ch;
                  }
                  

                  That will prevent any possibility of a buffer overflow issue, but will also be VERY slow (in comparison to pulling down a whole set of data at once).

                  If you decide to become a software engineer, you are signing up to have a 1/2" piece of silicon tell you exactly how stupid you really are for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week Zac

                  S Offline
                  S Offline
                  Stephen Hewitt
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #13

                  That's code is a good the way to read a single line, try this instead: getline(cin, input);

                  Steve

                  Z 1 Reply Last reply
                  0
                  • S Stephen Hewitt

                    That's code is a good the way to read a single line, try this instead: getline(cin, input);

                    Steve

                    Z Offline
                    Z Offline
                    Zac Howland
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #14

                    That still has the problem that he will need to limit his buffer size in order to prevent overrun problems. And the safer version is:

                    char buffer[100] = {0};
                    cin.getline(buffer, 99);
                    

                    If you decide to become a software engineer, you are signing up to have a 1/2" piece of silicon tell you exactly how stupid you really are for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week Zac

                    S 1 Reply Last reply
                    0
                    • Z Zac Howland

                      That still has the problem that he will need to limit his buffer size in order to prevent overrun problems. And the safer version is:

                      char buffer[100] = {0};
                      cin.getline(buffer, 99);
                      

                      If you decide to become a software engineer, you are signing up to have a 1/2" piece of silicon tell you exactly how stupid you really are for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week Zac

                      S Offline
                      S Offline
                      Stephen Hewitt
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #15

                      You don't have to limit the size of the buffer, you use std::string. ie. string line; getline(cin, line); Assumes using namespace std; and #include <iostream> and finally #include <string>

                      Steve

                      Z 1 Reply Last reply
                      0
                      • S Stephen Hewitt

                        You don't have to limit the size of the buffer, you use std::string. ie. string line; getline(cin, line); Assumes using namespace std; and #include <iostream> and finally #include <string>

                        Steve

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                        Z Offline
                        Zac Howland
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #16

                        Ah, you are correct. I completely forgot about the general getline function ... :doh:

                        If you decide to become a software engineer, you are signing up to have a 1/2" piece of silicon tell you exactly how stupid you really are for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week Zac

                        1 Reply Last reply
                        0
                        • S Stephen Hewitt

                          Try this instead. #include <iostream> #include <iomanip>   int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {     using namespace std;       char *pChar = new char[2];     cin >> setw(2) >> pChar;     delete [] pChar;       return 0; } You're reading too many charcters: you've got room for a NULL terminator (a string of zero length!) but your reading more and getting a buffer overrun. My code tells the IO classes how big the buffer is so it will not overrun it. If you only want to read a single char you could try doing this (in your code): cin >> *MyText;

                          Steve

                          N Offline
                          N Offline
                          Nader Elshehabi
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #17

                          Thanks Steve! I appreciate your response.:)

                          Regards:rose:

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