Question

I can’t seem to figure out what I’m doing wrong. I am simply intreating over a list of chars and trying to print them.

char *name[] =  {"RGS", "O", "NRGY", "SIG", "BML-O", "BHI", "KSU", "ORN"};
void function() {
    int i;
    //for (i =0; i<sizeof(name) / sizeof(char); i++) {
    for (i =0; name[i] != NULL; i++) {
        printf ("%s \n", name[i]);
    }
}

When I use the first for loop(the one commented out) it prints out the list but has two items at the end that say (NULL) and gives a segment fault. When I use the second for loop(the uncommented one), it prints everything but also gives a segment fault.

output:

RGS 
O 
NRGY 
SIG 
BML-O 
BHI 
KSU 
ORN 
Segmentation fault: 11

I don’t get any errors when compiling the code(gcc ./learningC.c) and if I comment out this function I do not get any error(it makes me think its this area of code thats the problem). I’m wondering what am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

For the first style of loop, you need to use sizeof(char*), not sizeof(char). The element of the array is char*, not char.

For the second style of loop, your array will only have a NULL at the end if you put it there:

char *name[] =  {"RGS", "O", "NRGY", "SIG", "BML-O", "BHI", "KSU", "ORN", NULL};