Corrupted struct char arrays - sqlite C++ - c++

Question

I am a bit puzzled by this one. Everything has been fine so far with using SQLite but now I am trying to store my query results in a simple struct. When I do this in my callback, all my data looks great in my SQLItems vector but as soon as the callback exits, my SQLItems vector holding my rows of data is suddenly corrupted. Any ideas what could be causing this?
// Simple struct to hold column name and row data
struct SQLrow {
char * Column;
char * Data;
};
// static Vector to hold SQL rows
static std::vector<SQLrow> SQLItems;
...
// static callback that handles placing query results into structs and into SQLItems vector
// SQLItems column/row data gets corrupted after this function exits
static int countTablesCallback(void *data, int count, char **rows, char **azColName) {
int i;
for (i = 0; i < count; i++) {
SQLrow newItem = { azColName[i] ,rows[i] };
SQLItems.push_back(newItem);
}
*static_cast<std::vector<SQLrow>*>(data) = SQLItems; // Tried this too but throws an exception
return 0;
}
I also thought maybe it is only possible to statically cast from the callback to save the vector but that is throwing an exception as well. Stumped here. Thanks for any advice!

Answer 1

Your vector is fine, the static_cast makes no sense there, unless data is actually used as an out parameter. Your problem is, most likely, that SQLrow holds char pointer and SQLite deletes the pointed-to strings after the callback returns. Changing your class to
struct SQLrow {
std::string Column;
std::string Data;
};
should solve the problem.

Answer 2

Just looking at the code, it appears that the data pointed to by rows will be invalidated/destroyed/changed once the callback returns. So you can't retain those pointers for later use, and will have to make a copy of the data.
One easy way is to change Column and Data from char * to std::string. Failing that, you'll have to do some sort of manual memory management (allocate space with new, then delete it later) which is error prone and not really advisable these days.

Answer 3

In my opinion, there are very few case in which you want/need to use raw string in c++ and yours isn't one of those. By the way I hope this will help you or someone else in some way:
#include <vector>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <iostream>
struct SQLrow {
char* Column;
char* Data;
};
void your_callback(int count, char **rows, char **azColName) {
std::vector<SQLrow> rows_list;
for (int i = 0; i < count; i++) {
/* Uncomment this if you want
your copy of the strings. If you
use this, don't forget to free the
memory yourself with delete[] s1 and
s2.
size_t s1_len = strlen(rows[i]);
size_t s2_len = strlen(azColName[i]);
char* s1 = new char [sizeof(char) * (s1_len + 1)];
char* s2 = new char [sizeof(char) * (s2_len + 1)];
memcpy(s1, rows[i], s1_len);
s1[s1_len] = '\0';
memcpy(s2, azColName[i], s2_len);
s2[s2_len] = '\0';
SQLrow r = { s1, s2 }; */
SQLrow r = { rows[i], azColName[i] };
rows_list.push_back(r);
}
// test the result
for (int i = 0; i < count; i++) {
SQLrow r = rows_list.at(i);
std::cout << "rows:" << r.Column << " azColName:" << r.Data << std::endl;
}
}
// this 2 lines are just for simulating the data
// you will get this 'warning: ISO C++ forbids converting a string constant to char*''
char* rows[] = {"row1", "row2" , "row3" };
char* colName[] = {"name1", "name2", "name3" };
int main()
{
your_callback(3, rows, colName);
return 0;
}