char* Input function Causes Seg Fault - c++

Question

Working on an assignment about Abstract Base classes, I'm running into a segment fault when I execute the getInput function I created in the addRecord function. I've tried a variety of methods for getting the user input for the name of the Employee/Student, however I keep running into issues with it.
getInput:
char* getInput(std::string message)
{
char* name;
std::cout << message << std::endl;
std::cin.ignore(INT_MAX, '\n');
std::cin.getline(name, INT_MAX);
return name;
}
addRecord:
/*
* addRecord(vecotr<base*>& v)
*
* Ask the user which type of record they want to add, an employee or student. Once
* they have made their selection, dynamically create a new pointer of the selected
* type of record and have them fill out the record's members via its set methods,
* then add it to the vector using the vector method .push_back().
*/
void addRecord(std::vector<Base*>& v)
{
std::cout << "--Records to Create--" << std::endl;
std::cout << "1.) Student Record" << std::endl;
std::cout << "2.) Employee Record" << std::endl;
std::cout << "Please select from the above options: ";
int sel = intInputLoop(1, 2);
clearConsole();
if (sel == 1)
{
char* name;
/*
std::cout << "Record Type: Student" << std::endl;
std::cin.ignore(INT_MAX, '\n');
std::cin.getline(name, INT_MAX);
*/
name = getInput("What is the Student's name? ");
float gradePointAverage = (float)intInputLoop(0, 4);
Student student = Student();
student.setName(name);
student.setGradePointAverage(gradePointAverage);
Base* bp = &student;
v.push_back(bp);
std::cout << "Added Student record for " << name << " with a grade point average of " << gradePointAverage << std::endl;
delete name;
}
else
{
char* name;
std::cout << "Record Type: Employee" << std::endl;
name = getInput("What is the Employee's name? ");
std::cout << "What is the Employee's salary? ";
int salary = intInputLoop(0, 0);
Employee employee = Employee();
employee.setName(name);
employee.setSalary(salary);
Base* bp = &employee;
v.push_back(bp);
std::cout << "Added Employee record for " << name << " with a salary of " << salary << std::endl;
delete name;
}
}
Any input is much appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

char* name;
This declares a pointer, to an indeterminate number of char values. Who knows how many of them there are. It could be just one, very lonely char, sitting there, all by itself with nobody to play with. It could be a million, an entire city of chars. It's completely unspecified, nobody knows; that's because the pointer is completely uninitialized. Nothing in C++ happens automatically. If you intend to use a pointer, it must, well, point somewhere valid before you can use that pointer.
std::cin.getline(name, INT_MAX);
This call to getline reads input into a pointer. The pointer must point to valid memory. Since the pointer is uninitialized, this is undefined behavior, and is the reason for your crash.
Since your intent here is to use C++, the simplest solution is to use a C++ class that just happens to handle all the memory management for you: std::string:
std::string name;
std::getline(std::cin, name);
You'll need to replace all old-fashioned char * pointers, which is what you would use if you were writing C code, with std::string. After all: this is C++, not C.