Initialize 2-D array of unknown size

Question

I have a 2-D array of characters e.g. char aList[numStrings][maxLength]. ideally, during program execution I want to be able to modify the contents of aList i.

Answer 1

If your plan is to populate while reading in the file you could do one of two things.

Either store the number of strings as the first element in the file, then the suggestion by jgottula would work well.

Or, must you use an array? You could read them directly into a linked list, and then when finished reading, move them into an array, and free up the linked list.