Question

This is a function in my program. With the cout statement there the program compiles and runs. If I remove the cout statement I get a segmentation fault returned. I’m using G++ compiler on linux mint. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

int findFactors(int n,int factors[],int numFactors)
{
  int m=n;
  int k=2;
  int i;

 while(m!=1)
 {
  for(k=2;k<=m;k++)
  {
   if(m%k==0)
    {
      factors[i]=k;
      cout<<"Prime Factor: "<<factors[i]<<endl;//This is the offending statement!
      factors[i++];
      numFactors++;
      break;
    }
  }
   m=(m/k);
 }

  return numFactors;
}   

Answer 1

i is uninitialized, so accessing factors[i] is undefined behavior and anything can happen.

Also, what is the statement factors[i++]; supposed to do?