Question

gcc 4.4.4 c89

However, I am having a problem trying to display all the animals.

I have the following code.

I am trying display all the animals in the array. So I have 3 array of pointers to char*. Then an array of pointers to these data sets.

I have tried to control the inner loop for checking for a -1 and a NULL for the outer.

void initialize_char_array()
{
    char *data_set1[] = {"dog", "cat", "bee", NULL};
    char *data_set2[] = {"rabbit", "ant", "snake", "rat", NULL};
    char *data_set3[] = {"cow", "lizard", "beaver", "bat", "hedgehog", NULL};

    char *ptr_char[] = {*data_set1, *data_set2, *data_set3, NULL};

    display_char_array(ptr_char);
}

void display_char_array(char **ptr_char)
{
    size_t inner = 0, outer = 0;

    for(outer = 0; ptr_char[outer] != NULL; outer++) {
        for(inner = 0; *ptr_char[inner] != -1; inner++) {
            printf("data [ %s ]\n", ptr_char[outer][inner]);
        }
    }
}

Many thanks for any suggestions,

Answer 1

*data_set1 is the same as data_set1[0].
Here’s a fixed version of what you trying to do. IMHO it’s matter of taste which are you using:
index-variable or pointer-iterators in the loop, apparently compiler will generate the very same machine code.

// type of ptr_char changed
void display_char_array(char **ptr_char[])
{
    size_t inner = 0, outer = 0;

    for(outer = 0; ptr_char[outer] != NULL; outer++) {
        // check for NULL in inner loop!
        for(inner = 0; ptr_char[outer][inner] != NULL; inner++) {
            printf("data [ %s ]\n", ptr_char[outer][inner]);
        }
    }
}
void initialize_char_array()
{
    char *data_set1[] = {"dog", "cat", "bee", NULL};
    char *data_set2[] = {"rabbit", "ant", "snake", "rat", NULL};
    char *data_set3[] = {"cow", "lizard", "beaver", "bat", "hedgehog", NULL};

    // fixed
    char **ptr_char[] = {data_set1, data_set2, data_set3, NULL};

    display_char_array(ptr_char);
}