I need to allocate memory for a pointer which needs to be used as a 2d array.I know how to allocate memory for char pointers and int pointers I am confused how memory is allocat
Also, in short you can do the following too in this case for allocating storage for five characters
names = (char*)malloc(5 * sizeof(char))
What you're doing is allocating space for 5 chars. You could write this and it'll have the same result:
char *names = (char *)malloc(sizeof(char) * 5);
If you want to have an array of pointers, I think this'd be the best code
char **names = (char **)malloc(sizeof(char *) * 5);
I'm not a super-coder, but as what I now, this is the right solution.
No, this is not because you are allocating the array assuming a dimension of just 1 element of primitive type char (which is 1 byte).
I'm assuming you want to allocate 5 pointers to strings inside names
, but just pointers.
You should allocate it according to the size of the pointer multiplied by the number of elements:
char **names = malloc(sizeof(char*)*5);
You don't need to allocate them one by one with a loop. Note that you need to specify that it is a pointer-of-pointers by using **
Emphisizing what Jack said in in the end: his code works only if the array is declared as a pointer-of-pointers by using **.
When the array is declared as
char *names[5];
I guess the right way of allocating memory is almost as Ak1to did, but multiplying by the wanted size of the string of chars:
char *names[5];
for(i=0;i<5;i++)
{
names[i]=(char *)malloc(sizeof(char)*80);
}
else the compiler throws an error about incompatible types.