Question

I have this basic Linked List structure:

struct node
{
    char *name;
    float salary;
    struct node *nextNode;
};

struct list
{
    struct node *firstNode;
};

This is my insert function:

void insert(struct list *pList, char *newName, float newSalary)
{
    struct node *newNode;
    newNode = (struct node *)malloc(sizeof(struct node));

    newNode->salary = newSalary;
    newNode->name = newName;

    if (pList->firstNode == NULL)
    {
        pList->firstNode = newNode;
        newNode->nextNode = NULL;
    }

    else
    {
        struct node *pos = pList->firstNode;
        for(; pos->nextNode; pos = pos->nextNode);
        pos->nextNode = newNode;
        newNode->nextNode = NULL;
    }

}

This is my main():

int main(void)
{
    struct list lst;
    struct list *plst = &lst;

    createList(plst); //initializes the list

    char name1[] = "John";
    char name2[] = "Thomas";
    char name3[] = "Albert";

    insert(plst, name1, 1000);
    insert(plst, name2, 2000);
    insert(plst, name3, 3000);
}

Everything works great except for the transfer of the char array. I thought the best way to pass a char array would be by passing a pointer to the first char in the char array, but I can’t see what I did wrong.

Also, would it be better to first create a new node and then pass a pointer to this node to the insert function? It’s similar, but perhaps it is more acceptable?

Answer 1

newNode->name = newName;

This is not the right way to copy c-strings. use strcpy or strncpy:

strcpy(newNode->name,newName);

As @Pablo pointed out you didn’t allocate memory for string, so first allocate and then copy:

newNode->name = malloc(strlen(newName)+1);
strcpy(newNode->name,newName);