Question

What is the issue with this code (It is printing arr[0] correctly but I am getting issues with arr[1]… printing some weird characters):

using namespace std;
char ** setName() {
    char * arr[2];
    for (int i=0;i<2;i++)
       arr[i] = (char*)malloc(100);
    arr[0] = strdup("Robert");
    arr[1] = strdup("Jose");
    return arr;
}
int main()
{
    char **arr;
    arr = setName();
    printf("First name is %s\n", arr[0]);
    printf("Second name is %s\n", arr[1]);
    return 0;
}

If it matters, i am running this code in Windows using Visual Studio 8.

Answer 1

You have two problems in that code:

1. An auto array such as your char * arr[2] is not automatically created with new[]; its storage goes away when the function returns. This is the source of your garbage. You should malloc() or new[] it.

   char **arr = malloc(2 * sizeof (*char));
   

2. strdup() does a malloc(), so you are pointlessly malloc()ing storage that is then lost because you overwrite the pointer.