Question

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

#define NAMELENGTH 20
#define MAXPEOPLE 10

struct people{
    char name[NAMELENGTH];

    int ratings[MAXPEOPLE];
};

int main(void)
{
    struct people *men[MAXPEOPLE];
    strcpy(men[2]->name,"pie");

    return 0;
}

It crashes upon trying to assign any value to men[2]->name
men[]->name is a char array and the first two slots men[0]->name and men[1]->name work fine.

Answer 1

You have only created an array of pointers, not an array of struct people:

struct people *men[MAXPEOPLE];

This only creates an array of pointers, but the pointers don’t yet point to anything because you haven’t allocated any space for them. This means that you are copying into a name that doesn’t actually exist. To create an array of struct people you want:

struct people men[MAXPEOPLE];
strcpy(men[2].name,"pie");