Question

This seems like a question that should have been answered already somewhere but I can’t seem to find something satisfactory. Anyway I need to return from a function something that looks like:

{ {"foo", "bar"}, {"baz", "foo"}, {"foo", "bar"} }

I am familiar with the use of argv and I understand what its types means but for some reason I can’t get the type of the above expression correct. There will always be 2 string literals on the innermost part and as such I thought something like either

char **s[2] or char *(*s[2])

should be what I am after but for some reason I constantly end up with a segfault no matter the permutation I try when I attempt to iterate through and use printf. Also the compiler is constantly complaining about incompatible pointer types, excess elements and too many braces. This is the current code:

 char *(*s[2]) = { {"foo", "bar"}, {"baz", "spam"}, {"eggs", "ham"} };

Answer 1

You are close.

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{

    char* s[][2] = { {"foo", "bar"}, {"baz", "spam"}, {"eggs", "ham"} };

    for( int i = 0; i < 3; i++ )
    {
        for(int j = 0; j < 2; j ++)
        {
            printf("%s ",s[i][j]);
        }
    }

}

The above prints: foo bar baz spam eggs ham