Question

main

...
            char coords;
            get_coords(1, &coords);
            printf("{%s}", coords);
...

get_coords:

void get_coords(int num, char *coords){
    if (num == 1){
        *coords = '0-0';
    }
}

problem seems to happen when the code tries to execute the printf and simply returns errors back… if i remove that line of code or change %s to %c it will work fine…

Answer 1

char coords;

printf("{%s}", coords);

coords is a char and not a string. %s conversion specification requires a char * argument and not a char. Passing an object of type char is undefined behavior.