I'm just an amateur programmer...
And when reading, for the second time, and more than two years apart, kochan's "Programming in Objective-C", now the 6th ed., reaching the pointer chapter i tried to revive the old days when i started programming with C...
So, i tried to program a reverse C string function, using char pointers...
At the end i got the desired result, but... got also a very strange behavior, i cannot explain with my little programming experience...
First the code:
This is a .m file,
#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>
#import "*pathToFolder*/NSPrint.m"
int main(int argc, char const *argv[])
{
#autoreleasepool
{
char * reverseString(char * str);
char *ch;
if (argc < 2)
{
NSPrint(#"No word typed in the command line!");
return 1;
}
NSPrint(#"Reversing arguments:");
for (int i = 1; argv[i]; i++)
{
ch = reverseString(argv[i]);
printf("%s\n", ch);
//NSPrint(#"%s - %s", argv[i], ch);
}
}
return 0;
}
char * reverseString(char * str)
{
int size = 0;
for ( ; *(str + size) != '\0'; size++) ;
//printf("Size: %i\n", size);
char result[size + 1];
int i = 0;
for (size-- ; size >= 0; size--, i++)
{
result[i] = *(str + size);
//printf("%c, %c\n", result[i], *(str + size));
}
result[i] = '\0';
//printf("result location: %lu\n", result);
//printf("%s\n", result);
return result;
}
Second some notes:
This code is compiled in a MacBook Pro, with MAC OS X Maverick, with CLANG (clang -fobjc-arc $file_name -o $file_name_base)
That NSPrint is just a wrapper for printf to print a NSString constructed with stringWithFormat:arguments:
And third the strange behavior:
If I uncomment all those commented printf declarations, everything work just fine, i.e., all printf functions print what they have to print, including the last printf inside main function.
If I uncomment one, and just one, randomly chosen, of those comment printf functions, again everything work just fine, and I got the correct printf results, including the last printf inside main function.
If I leave all those commented printf functions as they are, I GOT ONLY BLANK LINES with the last printf inside main block, and one black line for each argument passed...
Worst, if I use that NSPrint function inside main, instead of the printf one, I get the desired result :!
Can anyone bring some light here please :)
You're returning a local array, that goes out of scope as the function exits. Dereferencing that memory causes undefined behavior.
You are returning a pointer to a local variable of the function that was called. When that function returns, the memory for the local variable becomes invalid, and the pointer returned is rubbish.
Related
I'd like a step by step explanation on how to parse the arguments of a variadic function
so that when calling va_arg(ap, TYPE); I pass the correct data TYPE of the argument being passed.
Currently I'm trying to code printf.
I am only looking for an explanation preferably with simple examples but not the solution to printf since I want to solve it myself.
Here are three examples which look like what I am looking for:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/1689228/3206885
https://stackoverflow.com/a/5551632/3206885
https://stackoverflow.com/a/1722238/3206885
I know the basics of what typedef, struct, enum and union do but can't figure out some practical application cases like the examples in the links.
What do they really mean? I can't wrap my brain around how they work.
How can I pass the data type from a union to va_arg like in the links examples? How does it match?
with a modifier like %d, %i ... or the data type of a parameter?
Here's what I've got so far:
#include <stdarg.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include "my.h"
typedef struct s_flist
{
char c;
(*f)();
} t_flist;
int my_printf(char *format, ...)
{
va_list ap;
int i;
int j;
int result;
int arg_count;
char *cur_arg = format;
char *types;
t_flist flist[] =
{
{ 's', &my_putstr },
{ 'i', &my_put_nbr },
{ 'd', &my_put_nbr }
};
i = 0;
result = 0;
types = (char*)malloc( sizeof(*format) * (my_strlen(format) / 2 + 1) );
fparser(types, format);
arg_count = my_strlen(types);
while (format[i])
{
if (format[i] == '%' && format[i + 1])
{
i++;
if (format[i] == '%')
result += my_putchar(format[i]);
else
{
j = 0;
va_start(ap, format);
while (flist[j].c)
{
if (format[i] == flist[j].c)
result += flist[i].f(va_arg(ap, flist[i].DATA_TYPE??));
j++;
}
}
}
result += my_putchar(format[i]);
i++;
}
va_end(ap);
return (result);
}
char *fparser(char *types, char *str)
{
int i;
int j;
i = 0;
j = 0;
while (str[i])
{
if (str[i] == '%' && str[i + 1] &&
str[i + 1] != '%' && str[i + 1] != ' ')
{
i++;
types[j] = str[i];
j++;
}
i++;
}
types[j] = '\0';
return (types);
}
You can't get actual type information from va_list. You can get what you're looking for from format. What it seems you're not expecting is: none of the arguments know what the actual types are, but format represents the caller's idea of what the types should be. (Perhaps a further hint: what would the actual printf do if a caller gave it format specifiers that didn't match the varargs passed in? Would it notice?)
Your code would have to parse the format string for "%" format specifiers, and use those specifiers to branch into reading the va_list with specific hardcoded types. For example, (pseudocode) if (fspec was "%s") { char* str = va_arg(ap, char*); print out str; }. Not giving more detail because you explicitly said you didn't want a complete solution.
You will never have a type as a piece of runtime data that you can pass to va_arg as a value. The second argument to va_arg must be a literal, hardcoded specification referring to a known type at compile time. (Note that va_arg is a macro that gets expanded at compile time, not a function that gets executed at runtime - you couldn't have a function taking a type as an argument.)
A couple of your links suggest keeping track of types via an enum, but this is only for the benefit of your own code being able to branch based on that information; it is still not something that can be passed to va_arg. You have to have separate pieces of code saying literally va_arg(ap, int) and va_arg(ap, char*) so there's no way to avoid a switch or a chain of ifs.
The solution you want to make, using the unions and structs, would start from something like this:
typedef union {
int i;
char *s;
} PRINTABLE_THING;
int print_integer(PRINTABLE_THING pt) {
// format and print pt.i
}
int print_string(PRINTABLE_THING pt) {
// format and print pt.s
}
The two specialized functions would work fine on their own by taking explicit int or char* params; the reason we make the union is to enable the functions to formally take the same type of parameter, so that they have the same signature, so that we can define a single type that means pointer to that kind of function:
typedef int (*print_printable_thing)(PRINTABLE_THING);
Now your code can have an array of function pointers of type print_printable_thing, or an array of structs that have print_printable_thing as one of the structs' fields:
typedef struct {
char format_char;
print_printable_thing printing_function;
} FORMAT_CHAR_AND_PRINTING_FUNCTION_PAIRING;
FORMAT_CHAR_AND_PRINTING_FUNCTION_PAIRING formatters[] = {
{ 'd', print_integer },
{ 's', print_string }
};
int formatter_count = sizeof(formatters) / sizeof(FORMAT_CHAR_AND_PRINTING_FUNCTION_PAIRING);
(Yes, the names are all intentionally super verbose. You'd probably want shorter ones in the real program, or even anonymous types where appropriate.)
Now you can use that array to select the correct formatter at runtime:
for (int i = 0; i < formatter_count; i++)
if (current_format_char == formatters[i].format_char)
result += formatters[i].printing_function(current_printable_thing);
But the process of getting the correct thing into current_printable_thing is still going to involve branching to get to a va_arg(ap, ...) with the correct hardcoded type. Once you've written it, you may find yourself deciding that you didn't actually need the union nor the array of structs.
I have removed scanf from the code and the rest of the program runs with no issue. When the code reaches scanf, and after I type a number, xcode 'loses connection' and displays the error "Program ended with exit code: -1". I have also tried making 'input' an int, changed the name of variable input in case there was a conflict there, and tried it without fflush in the code. I am running Mountain Lion on Oracle VM Virtualbox, and my computer is on Windows 7, if that's relevant.
What am I doing wrong?
#import Foundation/Foundation.h
#include stdio.h
int main(int argc, const char * argv[])
{
#autoreleasepool {
float input = 1;
int i = 0;
float total = 0;
int max = 0;
int min = 1000;
while (input != 0){
NSLog(#"Please put in a number. \n");
scanf("%f", &input);
fflush(stdin);
if(input > max){
max = input;
}
if(input < min){
min = input;
}
total = total + input;
i++;
}
printf("The number of entered numbers was %i \n", i);
printf("The sum of the entered numbers is %f\n", total);
total = total/i;
printf("The average of all the numbers is %f\n", total);
printf("The highest number entered is %i\n", max);
printf("The lowest number entered is %i\n", min);
}
return 0;
}
fflush(stdin);
You probably want
fflush(stdout)
I'm not sure what fflush() will do with an FILE* opened for input.
This may or may not be the cause of your issues.
Return and Enter key have a different meaning inside Xcode. You go to the product menu and select build build for running and execute it in the terminal it will work fine.
Inside Xcode the Enter key in the numpad stops the program with a -1 return code. I am not sure whether this is bug or a feature, but I could not find the key in the keybinding for Xcode.
Please check here
I'm writing an objective-C program to deal with trajectories of Biomolecules with XCODE 4.3.1 and ARC. I need to read PDB files, i.e. parse large quantities of text formatted data. I'm very disappointed by NSString inefficiency and was trying to write a C-equivalent of componentsSeparatedByString:. The algorithm works just fine with NSString and NSMutableArrays, but i'm having a hard time using char* and char**.
Unfortunately, I'm getting an EXC_BAD_ACCESS error. The strange thing is that i get the error for i=68103 and j=68049 (does these number ring a bell for you ?), which means it worked for some time before crashing. The error is "static" (always block at the same (i,j) numbers). The array seems to work just fine(NSLog on its values before crash).
As it seems, I'm not very experienced with C-code and the subtlety behind pointers, but I would definitely be glad to hear your suggestions to make it work ! Thanks !
Heres the code :
+(char**) componentsSeparedByNewLineCEQUIV:(const char*)aChar:(int*)numWord
{ // char* aChar : my file, is typically 3 millions characters
int j=-1; //Last non space character
int i; //Scanned character
int len=strlen(aChar);
char** stringArray=malloc((*numWord)*sizeof(char*));
for (i=0;i<len; i++)
{ if (aChar[i]==10)
{
if ( j!=-1)
{
char* buffer2=malloc(i-j+1);
strcpy(buffer2, strndup(aChar+j, i-j));
stringArray[i]=malloc(sizeof(char)*strlen(buffer2)+1); //EXC_BAD_ACCESS HERE
strcpy(stringArray[i], buffer2);
}
j=-1;
}
else if (j==-1)
{j=i;}
}
if (j!=-1)
{ char* buffer2=malloc(i-j+1);
strcpy(buffer2, strndup(aChar+j, i-j));
stringArray[i]=malloc(strlen(buffer2)+1);
strcpy(stringArray[i], buffer2);
}
return stringArray;
}
You're probably not the first person to have this problem :)
Why not just use strtok?
PS What analysis showed that NSString was your problem?
I don't know why the error is at the line above of where it should be.However you are copying a string that is not allocated.
stringArray[i] is not allocated when you copy on it buffer2, allocate it:
if ( j!=-1)
{
char* buffer2=malloc(i-j+1);
strcpy(buffer2, strndup(aChar+j, i-j));
stringArray[i]=malloc(sizeof(char)*strlen(buffer2)+1); //EXC_BAD_ACCESS HERE
stringArray[i]=(char*)malloc( (strlen(buffer2)+1)*sizeof(char)); // Allocate the string
strcpy(stringArray[i], buffer2);
}
First: if Im not totaly wrong, but i think you are consuming at least 4-times as much memory as you need to:
You are using malloc for creating buffer2 and also using strndup for getting the wanted chars. strndup does exactly what you want, but in one step. char* buffer2 = strndup(aChar+j, i-j) should be your first step. Even worse in the next two line you are essential doing the same again. So i think what you are really want is stringArray[i] = strndup(aChar+j, i-j). To look at memory Problems: all the functions use errno to indicate memory allocating failure.
Second: Your functions does not return the number of components, so your stringArray may contain some garbage without knowing.
Third: strlen is expensive and you do not need it, just use for(int i = 0; aChar[i] != '\0'; i++)
Update for everyone who might be interested : this is a working version, using strtok which can be useful, although i'm still interested in response on my code.
This code have been tested 5 times faster (125ms vs 581ms) than [astring componentsSeparatedByString:#"\n"] ...
+(char**)componentsSeparatedByNewLine:(const char*)aChar:(int*)numWord
{
int i;
int j=0;
int len = strlen(aChar);
*numWord=1;
for (i=0;i<len; i++)
{
if (aChar[i]==10) *numWord=*numWord+1; //change 10 for any other character (ASCII for space)
}
char** stringArray=malloc((*numWord)*sizeof(char*));
char* pch;
char* aChar2=malloc(len+1);
strcpy(aChar2,aChar);
pch = strtok(aChar2,"\n");
while (pch != NULL)
{
stringArray[j]=(char*)malloc( (strlen(pch)+1)*sizeof(char));
strcpy(stringArray[j], pch);
//NSLog(#"%s",stringArray[j]);
j=j+1;
pch = strtok (NULL, "\n");
}
return stringArray;
}
I'm doing a small app for evaluating and analyzing transfer functions. As boring as the subject might seem to some, I want it to at least look extra cool and pro and awesome etc... So:
Step 1: Gimme teh coefficients! [A bunch of numbers]
Step 2: I'll write the polynomial with its superscripts. [The bunch of numbers in a string]
So, I write a little C parser to just print the polynomial with a decent format, for that I require a wchar_t string that I concatenate on the fly. After the string is complete I quickly try printing it on the console to check everything is ok and keep going. Easy right? Welp, I ain't that lucky...
wchar_t *polynomial_description( double *polyArray, char size, char var ){
wchar_t *descriptionString, temp[100];
int len, counter = 0;
SUPERSCRIPT superscript;
descriptionString = (wchar_t *) malloc(sizeof(wchar_t) * 2);
descriptionString[0] = '\0';
while( counter < size ){
superscript = polynomial_utilities_superscript( size - counter );
len = swprintf(temp, 100, L"%2.2f%c%c +", polyArray[counter], var, superscript);
printf("temp size: %d\n", len);
descriptionString = (wchar_t *) realloc(descriptionString, sizeof(wchar_t) * (wcslen(descriptionString) + len + 1) );
wcscat(descriptionString, temp);
counter++;
}
//fflush(stdout); //Already tried this
len = wprintf(L"%ls\n", descriptionString);
len = printf("%ls**\n", descriptionString);
len = fprintf(stdout, "%ls*\n", descriptionString);
len = printf("FFS!! Print something!");
return descriptionString;
}
During the run we can see temp size: 8 printed the expected number of times ONLY WHILE DEBUGGING, if I run the program I get an arbitrary number of prints each run. But after that, as the title states, wprintf, printf and fprintf don't print anything, yet len does change its size after each call.
In the caller function, (application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:, while testing) I put an NSLog to print the return string, and I dont get ANYTHING not even the Log part.
What's happening? I'm at a complete loss.
Im on XCode 4.2 by the way.
What's the return value from printf/wprintf in the case where you think it's not printing anything? It should be returning either -1 in the case of a failure or 1 or more, since if successful, it should always print at least the newline character after the description string.
If it's returning 1 or more, is the newline getting printed? Have you tried piping the output of your program to a hex dumper such as hexdump -C or xxd(1)?
If it's returning -1, what is the value of errno?
If it turns out that printf is failing with the error EILSEQ, then what's quite likely happening is that your string contains some non-ASCII characters in it, since those cause wcstombs(3) to fail in the default C locale. In that case, the solution is to use setlocale(3) to switch into a UTF-8 locale when your program starts up:
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
// Run "locale -a" in the Terminal to get a list of all valid locales
setlocale(LC_ALL, "en_US.UTF-8");
...
}
Hi all I am having a strange issue, when i use scanf to input data it repeats strings and saves them as one i am not sure why.
Please Help
/* Assment Label loop - Loops through the assment labels and inputs the percentage and the name for it. */
i = 0;
j = 0;
while (i < totalGradedItems)
{
scanf("%s%d", assLabel[i], &assPercent[i]);
i++;
}
/* Print Statement */
i = 0;
while (i < totalGradedItems)
{
printf("%s", assLabel[i]);
i++;
}
Input Data
Prog1 20
Quiz 20
Prog2 20
Mdtm 15
Final 25
Output Via Console
Prog1QuizQuizProg2MdtmMdtmFinal
Final diagnosis
You don't show your declarations...but you must be allocating just 5 characters for the strings:
When I adjust the enum MAX_ASSESSMENTLEN from 10 to 5 (see the code below) I get the output:
Prog1Quiz 20
Quiz 20
Prog2Mdtm 20
Mdtm 15
Final 25
You did not allow for the terminal null. And you didn't show us what was causing the bug! And the fact that you omitted newlines from the printout obscured the problem.
What's happening is that 'Prog1' is occupying all 5 bytes of the string you read in, and is writing a null at the 6th byte; then Quiz is being read in, starting at the sixth byte.
When printf() goes to read the string for 'Prog1', it stops at the first null, which is the one after the 'z' of 'Quiz', producing the output shown. Repeat for 'Prog2' and 'Mtdm'. If there was an entry after 'Final', it too would suffer. You are lucky that there are enough zero bytes around to prevent any monstrous overruns.
This is a basic buffer overflow (indeed, since the array is on the stack, it is a basic Stack Overflow); you are trying to squeeze 6 characters (Prog1 plus '\0') into a 5 byte space, and it simply does not work well.
Preliminary diagnosis
First, print newlines after your data.
Second, check that scanf() is not returning errors - it probably isn't, but neither you nor we can tell for sure.
Third, are you sure that the data file contains what you say? Plausibly, it contains a pair of 'Quiz' and a pair of 'Mtdm' lines.
Your variable j is unused, incidentally.
You would probably be better off having the input loop run until you are either out of space in the receiving arrays or you get a read failure. However, the code worked for me when dressed up slightly:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main(void)
{
char assLabel[10][10];
int assPercent[10];
int i = 0;
int totalGradedItems = 5;
while (i < totalGradedItems)
{
if (scanf("%9s%d", assLabel[i], &assPercent[i]) != 2)
{
fprintf(stderr, "Error reading\n");
exit(1);
}
i++;
}
/* Print Statement */
i = 0;
while (i < totalGradedItems)
{
printf("%-9s %3d\n", assLabel[i], assPercent[i]);
i++;
}
return 0;
}
For the quoted input data, the output results are:
Prog1 20
Quiz 20
Prog2 20
Mdtm 15
Final 25
I prefer this version, though:
#include <stdio.h>
enum { MAX_GRADES = 10 };
enum { MAX_ASSESSMENTLEN = 10 };
int main(void)
{
char assLabel[MAX_GRADES][MAX_ASSESSMENTLEN];
int assPercent[MAX_GRADES];
int i = 0;
int totalGradedItems;
for (i = 0; i < MAX_GRADES; i++)
{
if (scanf("%9s%d", assLabel[i], &assPercent[i]) != 2)
break;
}
totalGradedItems = i;
for (i = 0; i < totalGradedItems; i++)
printf("%-9s %3d\n", assLabel[i], assPercent[i]);
return 0;
}
Of course, if I'd set up the scanf() format string 'properly' (meaning safely) so as to limit the length of the assessment names to fit into the space allocated, then the loop would stop reading on the second attempt:
...
char format[10];
...
snprintf(format, sizeof(format), "%%%ds%%d", MAX_ASSESSMENTLEN-1);
...
if (scanf(format, assLabel[i], &assPercent[i]) != 2)
With MAX_ASSESSMENTLEN at 5, the snprintf() generates the format string "%4s%d". The code compiled reads:
Prog 1
and stops. The '1' comes from the 5th character of 'Prog1'; the next assessment name is '20', and then the conversion of 'Quiz' into a number fails, causing the input loop to stop (because only one of two expected items was converted).
Despite the nuisance value, if you want to make your scanf() strings adjust to the size of the data variables it is reading into, you have to do something akin to what I did here - format the string using the correct size values.
i guess, you need to put a
scanf("%s%d", assLabel[i], &assPercent[i]);
space between %s and %d here.
And it is not saving as one. You need to put newline or atlease a space after %s on print to see difference.
add:
when i tried
#include <stdio.h>
int main (int argc, const char * argv[])
{
char a[1][2];
for(int i =0;i<3;i++)
scanf("%s",a[i]);
for(int i =0;i<3;i++)
printf("%s",a[i]);
return 0;
}
with inputs
123456
qwerty
sdfgh
output is:
12qwsdfghqwsdfghsdfgh
that proves that, the size of string array need to be bigger then decleared there.