[SOLVED] string in c

Ranny · 01-25-2011, 10:50 AM

I am trying to concat strings, and probably doing something conceptually wrong. This code:

Code:

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

int main () {
const MAXL=256;
char *buffer;  
char *tmpch;  

buffer=malloc(MAXL*sizeof(char));  
tmpch=malloc(MAXL*sizeof(char));  

buffer="aaa";
tmpch="bb";
puts(buffer);
strcat(buffer,tmpch);

return 0;
}

compiled with gcc 4.4 on a Linux machine (Ubuntu), runs and gives a seg fault. Why?

Thanks!

dugan · 01-25-2011, 10:56 AM

Code:

buffer="aaa";
strcat(buffer,tmpch);

The first quoted line points buffer to a string constant.

The second line tries to overwrite the string constant.

You need to set the value of buffer with strncpy, not the assignment operator.

Ranny · 01-25-2011, 12:53 PM

Thanks! now it's working...

dugan · 01-25-2011, 12:58 PM

I should point out to you that:

you have memory leaks, because the malloc'd memory is never freed
to protect yourself from yourself, you should use strncat and not strcat