Getting write access violation when trying to re-allocate memory - c++

Question

I am writing a program that takes some contact information from user and grows the array dynamically when it gets full. But when I am trying to run the program I get Write access violation popping up a line from "iosfwd standard header". I don't know where I went wrong. Please do help.
My code looks like this:
# include "pch.h"
# include <iostream>
# include <string>
using namespace std;
struct Contact {
string name;
string number;
string address;
string exit;
};
void userPrompt(Contact &contact) {
cout << "Name: ";
getline(cin, contact.name);
cout << "Phone number: ";
getline(cin, contact.number);
cout << "Address: ";
getline(cin, contact.address);
cout << "Exit? (y/n): ";
getline(cin, contact.exit);
}
void printContact(Contact &contact) {
cout << "Name: " << contact.name << endl;
cout << "Phone number: " << contact.number << endl;
cout << "Address: " << contact.address << "\n" << endl;
}
void growArray(int &currentLength, Contact *contacts) {
int multiplyer = 2;
Contact *new_array = new Contact[currentLength * multiplyer];
for (int i = 0; i < currentLength; i++) {
new_array[i] = contacts[i];
}
delete[] contacts;
contacts = new_array;
currentLength *= multiplyer;
}
void showAllContacts(Contact *contacts, int length) {
for (int i = 0; i < length; i++) {
if (contacts[i].name.length() != 0) {
printContact(contacts[i]);
}
}
}
int main() {
// Prompt the user to fill in the address book.
// If the array gets full, make it bigger.
Contact *contacts = new Contact[1];
int currentLength = 1;
int i = 0;
while (true) {
userPrompt(contacts[i]);
if (contacts[i].exit == "y" or contacts[i].exit == "Y") {
break;
}
i++;
if (i == currentLength) {
growArray(currentLength, contacts);
}
}
// Show the address book
showAllContacts(contacts, currentLength);
}
But when I am running the code it throws exception like this:
enter image description here
"Write Access Violation"
I think the bug is in the growArray function. But I can't fugure out where did I screw up. Please do help.

Answer 1

In
growArray(currentLength, contacts);
a copy of the pointer contacts is modified inside the function; but outside, the pointer's value stays the same. After growArray returns, contacts points to deleted memory, hence UB, hence the crash.
==> Full program demonstration of the issue <==
There are basically two solutions: the bad one and the good one. The bad one is to change the signature of growArray to take a reference to the pointer:
void growArray(int &currentLength, Contact *&contacts)
The good one is to stop this manually allocated memory non-sense and use a std::vector<Contact>!