Question

I’m writing a string tokenization program for a homework assignment in C++, that uses pointers. However, when I run & debug it, it says that my pointer pStart, is invalid. I have a feeling that my problem resides in my param’ed constructor, I’ve included both the constructor and the object creation below.

I would appreciate it if you might tell me why it says that pStart is a bad pointer when I debug it.

Thanks!

StringTokenizer::StringTokenizer(char* pArray, char d)
{
pStart = pArray;
delim = d;
}

// create a tokenizer object, pass in the char array
// and a space character for the delimiter
StringTokenizer tk( "A test char array", ' ' );

Full stringtokenizer.cpp:

#include "stringtokenizer.h"
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

StringTokenizer::StringTokenizer(void)
{
pStart = NULL;
delim = 'n';
}

StringTokenizer::StringTokenizer(const char* pArray, char d)
{
pStart = pArray;
delim = d;
}

char* StringTokenizer::Next(void)
{
char* pNextWord = NULL;

while (pStart != NULL)
{
    if (*pStart == delim)
    {
        *pStart = '\0';
        pStart++;
        pNextWord = pStart;

        return pNextWord;
    }
    else
    {
        pStart++;
    }
}
    return pNextWord;
}

The function Next is supossed to return a pointer to the next word in the char array. It’s currently not finished. 🙂

Full stringtokenizer.h:

#pragma once

class StringTokenizer
{
public:
StringTokenizer(void);
StringTokenizer(const char*, char);
char* Next(void);
~StringTokenizer(void);
private:
char* pStart;
char delim;
};

Full main.cpp:

const int CHAR_ARRAY_CAPACITY = 128;
const int CHAR_ARRAY_CAPCITY_MINUS_ONE = 127;

// create a place to hold the user's input
// and a char pointer to use with the next( ) function
char words[CHAR_ARRAY_CAPACITY];
char* nextWord;

cout << "\nString Tokenizer Project";
cout << "\nyour name\n\n";
cout << "Enter in a short string of words:";
cin.getline ( words, CHAR_ARRAY_CAPCITY_MINUS_ONE );

// create a tokenizer object, pass in the char array
// and a space character for the delimiter
StringTokenizer tk( words, ' ' );

// this loop will display the tokens
while ( ( nextWord = tk.Next ( ) ) != NULL )
{
    cout << nextWord << endl;
}


system("PAUSE");
return 0;

Answer 1

Change pStart in the StringTokenizer class from char* to const char*, and make the same change to the constructor.