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Problem with Array of char*

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  • C CPallini

    OK, as already suggested by «_Superman_», probably your code is crashing because you're passing a string literal to the function (strtok cannot access for writing a constant string). for instance

    char * name = "system.fullscreen";
    token[0] = strtok(name, "."); // exception here

    would crash the application, while

    char name[] = "system.fullscreen";
    token[0] = strtok(name, ".");

    should work fine. :)

    If the Lord God Almighty had consulted me before embarking upon the Creation, I would have recommended something simpler. -- Alfonso the Wise, 13th Century King of Castile.
    This is going on my arrogant assumptions. You may have a superb reason why I'm completely wrong. -- Iain Clarke
    [My articles]

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    error1408
    wrote on last edited by
    #8

    Your right, I get a char* name as a parameter and use it to call the function. Thats the cause of the crash. But how do I solve this problem? I have this char *name and it has to be tokenized. How can I do that as strtok crashes with it? Btw. thanks for your help, I would have never thought of THAT ^^

    C 1 Reply Last reply
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    • E error1408

      Your right, I get a char* name as a parameter and use it to call the function. Thats the cause of the crash. But how do I solve this problem? I have this char *name and it has to be tokenized. How can I do that as strtok crashes with it? Btw. thanks for your help, I would have never thought of THAT ^^

      C Offline
      C Offline
      CPallini
      wrote on last edited by
      #9

      well, if you really need to use that fucntion, then you may assign the array the way I shown in my previous post, or do someting like:

      char * name;
      name = _strdup("system.fullscreen");
      if ( name )
      {
      strtoken(name, ".", token);
      free(name); // don't forget to free memory
      }

      :)

      If the Lord God Almighty had consulted me before embarking upon the Creation, I would have recommended something simpler. -- Alfonso the Wise, 13th Century King of Castile.
      This is going on my arrogant assumptions. You may have a superb reason why I'm completely wrong. -- Iain Clarke
      [My articles]

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      • C CPallini

        well, if you really need to use that fucntion, then you may assign the array the way I shown in my previous post, or do someting like:

        char * name;
        name = _strdup("system.fullscreen");
        if ( name )
        {
        strtoken(name, ".", token);
        free(name); // don't forget to free memory
        }

        :)

        If the Lord God Almighty had consulted me before embarking upon the Creation, I would have recommended something simpler. -- Alfonso the Wise, 13th Century King of Castile.
        This is going on my arrogant assumptions. You may have a superb reason why I'm completely wrong. -- Iain Clarke
        [My articles]

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        error1408
        wrote on last edited by
        #10

        But if I call it with that char* it crashes! I have a function

        doSomething(char *name)
        {
        [...]
        strtoken(name, ".", token); //crashes
        }

        That works but it does not help me:

        doSomething(char *name)
        {
        [...]
        char foo[] = "hello.world";
        strtoken(foo, ".", token); //does NOT crash
        }

        But how can I use strtoken with char *name? Can I make a char foo[] out of char *name?

        C 1 Reply Last reply
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        • E error1408

          But if I call it with that char* it crashes! I have a function

          doSomething(char *name)
          {
          [...]
          strtoken(name, ".", token); //crashes
          }

          That works but it does not help me:

          doSomething(char *name)
          {
          [...]
          char foo[] = "hello.world";
          strtoken(foo, ".", token); //does NOT crash
          }

          But how can I use strtoken with char *name? Can I make a char foo[] out of char *name?

          C Offline
          C Offline
          CPallini
          wrote on last edited by
          #11

          if you really need to pass a constant string to doSomething, the you may write (as already suggested)

          doSomething(char * name)
          {
          //...
          char * name_writable_copy = _strdup( name );
          if ( name_writable_copy )
          {
          strtoken(name_writable_copy, ".", token);
          free( name_writable_copy );
          }
          else
          {
          // handle (unusual) allocation error
          }
          }

          The above code shouldn't crash. :)

          If the Lord God Almighty had consulted me before embarking upon the Creation, I would have recommended something simpler. -- Alfonso the Wise, 13th Century King of Castile.
          This is going on my arrogant assumptions. You may have a superb reason why I'm completely wrong. -- Iain Clarke
          [My articles]

          E 1 Reply Last reply
          0
          • C CPallini

            if you really need to pass a constant string to doSomething, the you may write (as already suggested)

            doSomething(char * name)
            {
            //...
            char * name_writable_copy = _strdup( name );
            if ( name_writable_copy )
            {
            strtoken(name_writable_copy, ".", token);
            free( name_writable_copy );
            }
            else
            {
            // handle (unusual) allocation error
            }
            }

            The above code shouldn't crash. :)

            If the Lord God Almighty had consulted me before embarking upon the Creation, I would have recommended something simpler. -- Alfonso the Wise, 13th Century King of Castile.
            This is going on my arrogant assumptions. You may have a superb reason why I'm completely wrong. -- Iain Clarke
            [My articles]

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            error1408
            wrote on last edited by
            #12

            Ok thx. I will try it in the evening today and post my results.

            C 1 Reply Last reply
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            • E error1408

              Ok thx. I will try it in the evening today and post my results.

              C Offline
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              CPallini
              wrote on last edited by
              #13

              Well, good luck! :)

              If the Lord God Almighty had consulted me before embarking upon the Creation, I would have recommended something simpler. -- Alfonso the Wise, 13th Century King of Castile.
              This is going on my arrogant assumptions. You may have a superb reason why I'm completely wrong. -- Iain Clarke
              [My articles]

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              • E error1408

                Ok look, here is the full function (that I did NOT write myself) which should work correct, but I think >>I<< do something NOT correct. Its a tokenizer for char-strings

                int strtoken(char *str, char *separator, char *token[])
                {
                int i = 0;

                	token\[0\] = strtok(str, separator); //This line crashes
                
                	while ( token\[i\] ) 
                	{
                		i++;
                		token\[i\] = strtok(NULL, separator);
                	}
                	return ( i );
                }
                

                And I call it that way atm:

                		char \*token\[256\]; //I think that is an array of char\*, isn't it?
                		for(int i = 0; i < 256; i++)
                		{
                			token\[i\] = '\\0';
                		}
                		Helper::instance()->strtoken(name, ".", token);
                

                name is a char* e.g. "system.fullscreen"

                D Offline
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                David Crow
                wrote on last edited by
                #14

                error1408 wrote:

                Helper::instance()->strtoken(name, ".", token);

                How about something like:

                char *temp = new char[strlen(name) + 1];
                strcpy(temp, name);
                Helper::instance()->strtoken(temp, ".", token);

                "Old age is like a bank account. You withdraw later in life what you have deposited along the way." - Unknown

                "Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons

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                • D David Crow

                  error1408 wrote:

                  Helper::instance()->strtoken(name, ".", token);

                  How about something like:

                  char *temp = new char[strlen(name) + 1];
                  strcpy(temp, name);
                  Helper::instance()->strtoken(temp, ".", token);

                  "Old age is like a bank account. You withdraw later in life what you have deposited along the way." - Unknown

                  "Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons

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                  error1408
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #15

                  DavidCrow wrote:

                  How about something like: char *temp = new char[strlen(name) + 1]; strcpy(temp, name); Helper::instance()->strtoken(temp, ".", token);

                  Ok this works! But I don't understand why...could someone explain it to me? Why does the param char * not work but the char * thats created here? Btw. I have to DELETE the char *temp afterwards, right?

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                  • E error1408

                    DavidCrow wrote:

                    How about something like: char *temp = new char[strlen(name) + 1]; strcpy(temp, name); Helper::instance()->strtoken(temp, ".", token);

                    Ok this works! But I don't understand why...could someone explain it to me? Why does the param char * not work but the char * thats created here? Btw. I have to DELETE the char *temp afterwards, right?

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                    David Crow
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #16

                    error1408 wrote:

                    Why does the param char * not work but the char * thats created here?

                    Work through this:

                    void main( void )
                    {
                    char *abc = "First";
                    char xyz[] = "Last";

                    abc\[0\] = '1';
                    xyz\[0\] = '2';
                    

                    }

                    error1408 wrote:

                    Btw. I have to DELETE the char *temp afterwards, right?

                    Correct (since it points to heap memory).

                    "Old age is like a bank account. You withdraw later in life what you have deposited along the way." - Unknown

                    "Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons

                    E 1 Reply Last reply
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                    • D David Crow

                      error1408 wrote:

                      Why does the param char * not work but the char * thats created here?

                      Work through this:

                      void main( void )
                      {
                      char *abc = "First";
                      char xyz[] = "Last";

                      abc\[0\] = '1';
                      xyz\[0\] = '2';
                      

                      }

                      error1408 wrote:

                      Btw. I have to DELETE the char *temp afterwards, right?

                      Correct (since it points to heap memory).

                      "Old age is like a bank account. You withdraw later in life what you have deposited along the way." - Unknown

                      "Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons

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                      E Offline
                      error1408
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #17

                      Ok I think I got it. So is it right, that in my case I can not know if the char *name that I get is a literal or not so to be sure it's not I have to create a temp array?

                      D I 2 Replies Last reply
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                      • E error1408

                        Ok I think I got it. So is it right, that in my case I can not know if the char *name that I get is a literal or not so to be sure it's not I have to create a temp array?

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                        David Crow
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #18

                        error1408 wrote:

                        ...I can not know if the char *name that I get is a literal or not so to be sure it's not I have to create a temp array?

                        You'll notice in my example that both variables pointed to a string literal, yet only one of them could be changed. Therein lies the difference between a char* vs. char[]. See here for more.

                        "Old age is like a bank account. You withdraw later in life what you have deposited along the way." - Unknown

                        "Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons

                        1 Reply Last reply
                        0
                        • E error1408

                          Ok I think I got it. So is it right, that in my case I can not know if the char *name that I get is a literal or not so to be sure it's not I have to create a temp array?

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                          ilostmyid2
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #19

                          i agree with the pallini's solution and also david gave a good description. string literals r located in a const part of memory which is not writable. this is why arrays don't cause crash. they're located in heap or stack based on whether u allocate them or use local variables which r both writable parts of memory. there's an API function to determine whether a block of memory or a string is const named AfxIsValidAddress. it may also test whether the block is writable. but if i were u, i would use _strdup anyway, and would pass the arg as const for the caller to make sure that the original version of the passed string is not altered.

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