Question

I think the error has to do with my string being too large. If the function worked correctly, I doubt that I would be anywhere near the max string size (unless that really is the problem? I doubt it because this is for a HW assignment and we need to return output with the song lyrics). What is throwing this error? How big can the string get?

Error:

terminate called after throwing an instance of 'std::length_error'  
what():  basic_string::_S_create 
Aborted (core dumped)

Function:

string generateSong(string list[], int num)
{
   string output;

   for(int count = 0; count <= num; count++)
      output += list[count] + " bone connected to the "
      + list[count + 1] + " bone\n";

   return output;
}

Contents of list[]:

string list[9] =
   {
      "toe",
      "foot",
      "leg",
      "knee",
      "hip",
      "back",
      "neck",
      "jaw",
      "head"
   };

num is 9. Is output really becoming too big? Everything compiles fine (using g++).

Answer 1

The actual problem with your code is here:

for(int count = 0; count <= num; count++)
                     //  ^^^ problem!

It should be count < (num-1), because you’re using list[count + 1] in the loop-body.