First and foremost, I'm new to cstrings and I have to use them for the assignment. I wish I didn't have to since they're a pain.
Anyway, the issue I'm having is with a function that accepts password, reverses the order, and passes it back to main. For whatever reason, I can't get it to populate the cstring tasked with holding the password. I've tried more than one way to get it working, but I've had no luck.
The function:
char* Reverse_Pass(char p_word[])
{
int last_let = strlen(p_word);
int rev_index = 0;
char* rev_pass = new char[last_let];
//cout << "\ntest 3";
rev_pass[0] = '\0';
//for (int i = last_let; i >= 0; i--)
while (p_word[last_let] != '\0')
{
rev_pass[rev_index] = p_word[last_let];
rev_index++;
last_let--;
}
return rev_pass;
}
I tried using a for loop for the process, but it throws a break point message when the result was sent to another function for verification of said password. This function at least allows the program to run without error. The issue I'm having is logical, but I can't see it.
There are a few issues here. First off is that strlen returns the length of the string not counting the null terminator. That means when you do
while (p_word[last_let] != '\0')
p_word[last_let] is '\0' since cstrign[strlen(cstring)] is the null terminator and the loop never executes. All of this though is still wrong. Really what you want to do is stop when last_let is less than 0.
This also affects rev_pass. You use
char* rev_pass = new char[last_let];
Which gives you enough storage for the string but not enough for the null terminator that all cstrings must have. What you need is
char* rev_pass = new char[last_let + 1];
Lastly, you never null terminate rev_pass. Since you know that it will be the last position that needs the null terminator you can simply use
rev_pass[last_let] = '\0';
After you allocate it.
All of those changes gives you
char* Reverse_Pass(char p_word[])
{
int last_let = strlen(p_word);
int rev_index = 0;
char* rev_pass = new char[last_let + 1];
rev_pass[last_let] = '\0';
while (last_let > 0)
{
rev_pass[rev_index++] = p_word[--last_let];
}
return rev_pass;
}
I would say three things here:
new char[last_let]; should be new char[last_let+1];, space for /0 not included in strlen returned value
rev_pass[0] = '\0'; should be `rev_pass[last_let] = '\0'; you want the string to be 0 terminated
the end loop condition is p_word[last_let] != '\0, but you are decreasing the value of last_let...so you are checking for a 0 byte before the begin of the string that is not guarantee in anyway. the strings are 0 terminated!
For the (3) I think if you flip the index usage in the loop (eg last_let for the reversed string and rev_index for the source should make the trick)
Happy coding, Ste
Related
I understand how to find the size using a string type array:
char * shuffleStrings(string theStrings[])
{
int sz = 0;
while(!theStrings[sz].empty())
{
sz++;
}
sz--;
printf("sz is %d\n", sz);
char * shuffled = new char[sz];
return shuffled;
}
One of my questions in the above example also is, why do I have to decrement the size by 1 to find the true number of elements in the array?
So if the code looked like this:
char * shuffleStrings(char * theStrings[])
{
//how can I find the size??
//I tried this and got a weird continuous block of printing
int i = 0;
while(!theStrings)
{
theStrings++;
i++;
}
printf("sz is %d\n", i);
char * shuffled = new char[i];
return shuffled;
}
You should not decrement the counter to get the real size, in the fist snippet. if you have two element and one empty element, the loop will end with value , which is correct.
In the second snippet, you work on a pointer to a pointr. So the while-condition should be *theStrings (supposing that a NULL pointer ist the marker for the end of your table.
Note that in both cases, if the table would not hold the marker for the end of table, you'd risk to go out of bounds. Why not work with vector<string> ? Then you could get the size without any loop, and would not risk to go out of bounds
What you are seeing here is the "termination" character in the string or '\0'
You can see this better when you use a char* array instead of a string.
Here is an example of a size calculator that I have made.
int getSize(const char* s)
{
unsigned int i = 0;
char x = ' ';
while ((x = s[i++]) != '\0');
return i - 1;
}
As you can see, the char* is terminated with a '\0' character to indicate the end of the string. That is the character that you are counting in your algorithm and that is why you are getting the extra character.
As to your second question, seem to want to create a new array with size of all of the strings.
To do this, you could calculate the length of each string and then add them together to create a new array.
I am currently experimenting with a very simple Boyer-Moore variant.
In general my implementation works, but if I try to utilize it in a loop the character pointer containing the haystack gets messed up. And I mean that characters in it are altered, or mixed.
The result is consistent, i.e. running the same test multiple times yields the same screw up.
This is the looping code:
string src("This haystack contains a needle! needless to say that only 2 matches need to be found!");
string pat("needle");
const char* res = src.c_str();
while((res = boyerMoore(res, pat)))
++res;
This is my implementation of the string search algorithm (the above code calls a convenience wrapper which pulls the character pointer and length of the string):
unsigned char*
boyerMoore(const unsigned char* src, size_t srcLgth, const unsigned char* pat, size_t patLgth)
{
if(srcLgth < patLgth || !src || !pat)
return nullptr;
size_t skip[UCHAR_MAX]; //this is the skip table
for(int i = 0; i < UCHAR_MAX; ++i)
skip[i] = patLgth; //initialize it with default value
for(size_t i = 0; i < patLgth; ++i)
skip[(int)pat[i]] = patLgth - i - 1; //set skip value of chars in pattern
std::cout<<src<<"\n"; //just to see what's going on here!
size_t srcI = patLgth - 1; //our first character to check
while(srcI < srcLgth)
{
size_t j = 0; //char match ct
while(j < patLgth)
{
if(src[srcI - j] == pat[patLgth - j - 1])
++j;
else
{
//since the number of characters to skip may be negative, I just increment in that case
size_t t = skip[(int)src[srcI - j]];
if(t > j)
srcI = srcI + t - j;
else
++srcI;
break;
}
}
if(j == patLgth)
return (unsigned char*)&src[srcI + 1 - j];
}
return nullptr;
}
The loop produced this output (i.e. these are the haystacks the algorithm received):
This haystack contains a needle! needless to say that only 2 matches need to be found!
eedle! needless to say that only 2 matches need to be found!
eedless to say that eed 2 meed to beed to be found!
As you can see the input is completely messed up after the second run. What am I missing? I thought the contents could not be modified, since I'm passing const pointers.
Is the way of setting the pointer in the loop wrong, or is my string search screwing up?
Btw: This is the complete code, except for includes and the main function around the looping code.
EDIT:
The missing nullptr of the first return was due to a copy/paste error, in the source it is actually there.
For clarification, this is my wrapper function:
inline char* boyerMoore(const string &src, const string &pat)
{
return (const char*) boyerMoore((const unsigned char*) src.c_str(), src.size(),
(const unsigned char*) pat.c_str(), pat.size());
}
In your boyerMoore() function, the first return isn't returning a value (you have just return; rather than return nullptr;) GCC doesn't always warn about missing return values, and not returning anything is undefined behavior. That means that when you store the return value in res and call the function again, there's no telling what will print out. You can see a related discussion here.
Also, you have omitted your convenience function that calculates the length of the strings that you are passing in. I would recommend double checking that logic to make sure the sizes are correct - I'm assuming you are using strlen or similar.
I am trying to make an own simple string implementation in C++. My implementation is not \0 delimited, but uses the first element in my character array (the data structure I have chosen to implement the string) as the length of the string.
In essence, I have this as my data structure: typedef char * arrayString; and I have got the following as the implementation of some primal string manipulating routines:
#include "stdafx.h"
#include <iostream>
#include "new_string.h"
// Our string implementation will store the
// length of the string in the first byte of
// the string.
int getLength(const arrayString &s1) {
return s1[0] - '0';
}
void append_str(arrayString &s, char c) {
int length = getLength(s); // get the length of our current string
length++; // account for the new character
arrayString newString = new char[length]; // create a new heap allocated string
newString[0] = length;
// fill the string with the old contents
for (int counter = 1; counter < length; counter++) {
newString[counter] = s[counter];
}
// append the new character
newString[length - 1] = c;
delete[] s; // prevent a memory leak
s = newString;
}
void display(const arrayString &s1) {
int max = getLength(s1);
for (int counter = 1; counter <= max; counter++) {
std::cout << s1[counter];
}
}
void appendTest() {
arrayString a = new char[5];
a[0] = '5'; a[1] = 'f'; a[2] = 'o'; a[3] = 't'; a[4] = 'i';
append_str(a, 's');
display(a);
}
My issue is with the implementation of my function getLength(). I have tried to debug my program inside Visual Studio, and all seems nice and well in the beginning.
The first time getLength() is called, inside the append_str() function, it returns the correct value for the string length (5). When it get's called inside the display(), my own custom string displaying function (to prevent a bug with std::cout), it reads the value (6) correctly, but returns -42? What's going on?
NOTES
Ignore my comments in the code. It's purely educational and it's just me trying to see what level of commenting improves the code and what level reduces its quality.
In get_length(), I had to do first_element - '0' because otherwise, the function would return the ascii value of the arithmetic value inside. For instance, for decimal 6, it returned 54.
This is an educational endeavour, so if you see anything else worth commenting on, or fixing, by all means, let me know.
Since you are getting the length as return s1[0] - '0'; in getLength() you should set then length as newString[0] = length + '0'; instead of newString[0] = length;
As a side why are you storing the size of the string in the array? why not have some sort of integer member that you store the size in. A couple of bytes really isn't going to hurt and now you have a string that can be more than 256 characters long.
You are accessing your array out of bounds at couple of places.
In append_str
for (int counter = 1; counter < length; counter++) {
newString[counter] = s[counter];
}
In the example you presented, the starting string is "5foti" -- without the terminating null character. The maximum valid index is 4. In the above function, length has already been set to 6 and you are accessing s[5].
This can be fixed by changing the conditional in the for statement to counter < length-1;
And in display.
int max = getLength(s1);
for (int counter = 1; counter <= max; counter++) {
std::cout << s1[counter];
}
Here again, you are accessing the array out of bounds by using counter <= max in the loop.
This can be fixed by changing the conditional in the for statement to counter < max;
Here are some improvements, that should also cover your question:
Instead of a typedef, define a class for your string. The class should have an int for the length and a char* for the string data itself.
Use operator overloads in your class "string" so you can append them with + etc.
The - '0' gives me pain. You subtract the ASCII value of 42 from the length, but you do not add it as a character. Also, the length can be 127 at maximum, because char goes from -128 to +127. See point #1.
append_str changes the pointer of your object. That's very bad practice!
Ok, thank you everyone for helping me out.
The problem appeared to be inside the appendTest() function, where I was storing in the first element of the array the character code for the value I wanted to have as a size (i.e storing '5' instead of just 5). It seems that I didn't edit previous code that I had correctly, and that's what caused me the issues.
As an aside to what many of you are asking, why am I not using classes or better design, it's because I want to implement a basic string structure having many constraints, such as no classes, etc. I basically want to use only arrays, and the most I am affording myself is to make them dynamically allocated, i.e resizable.
I just took an exam where I was asked the following:
Write the function body of each of the methods GenStrLen, InsertChar and StrReverse for the given code below. You must take into consideration the following;
How strings are constructed in C++
The string must not overflow
Insertion of character increases its length by 1
An empty string is indicated by StrLen = 0
class Strings {
private:
char str[80];
int StrLen;
public:
// Constructor
Strings() {
StrLen=0;
};
// A function for returning the length of the string 'str'
int GetStrLen(void) {
};
// A function to inser a character 'ch' at the end of the string 'str'
void InsertChar(char ch) {
};
// A function to reverse the content of the string 'str'
void StrReverse(void) {
};
};
The answer I gave was something like this (see bellow). My one of problem is that used many extra variables and that makes me believe am not doing it the best possible way, and the other thing is that is not working....
class Strings {
private:
char str[80];
int StrLen;
int index; // *** Had to add this ***
public:
Strings(){
StrLen=0;
}
int GetStrLen(void){
for (int i=0 ; str[i]!='\0' ; i++)
index++;
return index; // *** Here am getting a weird value, something like 1829584505306 ***
}
void InsertChar(char ch){
str[index] = ch; // *** Not sure if this is correct cuz I was not given int index ***
}
void StrRevrse(void){
GetStrLen();
char revStr[index+1];
for (int i=0 ; str[i]!='\0' ; i++){
for (int r=index ; r>0 ; r--)
revStr[r] = str[i];
}
}
};
I would appreciate if anyone could explain me roughly what is the best way to have answered the question and why. Also how come my professor closes each class function like " }; ", I thought that was only used for ending classes and constructors only.
Thanks a lot for your help.
First, the trivial }; question is just a matter of style. I do that too when I put function bodies inside class declarations. In that case the ; is just an empty statement and doesn't change the meaning of the program. It can be left out of the end of the functions (but not the end of the class).
Here's some major problems with what you wrote:
You never initialize the contents of str. It's not guaranteed to start out with \0 bytes.
You never initialize index, you only set it within GetStrLen. It could have value -19281281 when the program starts. What if someone calls InsertChar before they call GetStrLen?
You never update index in InsertChar. What if someone calls InsertChar twice in a row?
In StrReverse, you create a reversed string called revStr, but then you never do anything with it. The string in str stays the same afterwords.
The confusing part to me is why you created a new variable called index, presumably to track the index of one-past-the-last character the string, when there was already a variable called StrLen for this purpose, which you totally ignored. The index of of one-past-the-last character is the length of the string, so you should just have kept the length of the string up to date, and used that, e.g.
int GetStrLen(void){
return StrLen;
}
void InsertChar(char ch){
if (StrLen < 80) {
str[StrLen] = ch;
StrLen = StrLen + 1; // Update the length of the string
} else {
// Do not allow the string to overflow. Normally, you would throw an exception here
// but if you don't know what that is, you instructor was probably just expecting
// you to return without trying to insert the character.
throw std::overflow_error();
}
}
Your algorithm for string reversal, however, is just completely wrong. Think through what that code says (assuming index is initialized and updated correctly elsewhere). It says "for every character in str, overwrite the entirety of revStr, backwards, with this character". If str started out as "Hello World", revStr would end up as "ddddddddddd", since d is the last character in str.
What you should do is something like this:
void StrReverse() {
char revStr[80];
for (int i = 0; i < StrLen; ++i) {
revStr[(StrLen - 1) - i] = str[i];
}
}
Take note of how that works. Say that StrLen = 10. Then we're copying position 0 of str into position 9 of revStr, and then position 1 of str into position 9 of revStr, etc, etc, until we copy position StrLen - 1 of str into position 0 of revStr.
But then you've got a reversed string in revStr and you're still missing the part where you put that back into str, so the complete method would look like
void StrReverse() {
char revStr[80];
for (int i = 0; i < StrLen; ++i) {
revStr[(StrLen - 1) - i] = str[i];
}
for (int i = 0; i < StrLen; ++i) {
str[i] = revStr[i];
}
}
And there are cleverer ways to do this where you don't have to have a temporary string revStr, but the above is perfectly functional and would be a correct answer to the problem.
By the way, you really don't need to worry about NULL bytes (\0s) at all in this code. The fact that you are (or at least you should be) tracking the length of the string with the StrLen variable makes the end sentinel unnecessary since using StrLen you already know the point beyond which the contents of str should be ignored.
int GetStrLen(void){
for (int i=0 ; str[i]!='\0' ; i++)
index++;
return index; // *** Here am getting a weird value, something like 1829584505306 ***
}
You are getting a weird value because you never initialized index, you just started incrementing it.
Your GetStrLen() function doesn't work because the str array is uninitialized. It probably doesn't contain any zero elements.
You don't need the index member. Just use StrLen to keep track of the current string length.
There are lots of interesting lessons to learn by this exam question. Firstly the examiner is does not appear to a fluent C++ programmer themselves! You might want to look at the style of the code, including whether the variables and method names are meaningful as well as some of the other comments you've been given about usage of (void), const, etc... Do the method names really need "Str" in them? We are operating with a "Strings" class, after all!
For "How strings are constructed in C++", well (like in C) these are null-terminated and don't store the length with them, like Pascal (and this class) does. [#Gustavo, strlen() will not work here, since the string is not a null-terminated one.] In the "real world" we'd use the std::string class.
"The string must not overflow", but how does the user of the class know if they try to overflow the string. #Tyler's suggestion of throwing a std::overflow_exception (perhaps with a message) would work, but if you are writing your own string class (purely as an exercise, you're very unlikely to need to do so in real life) then you should probably provide your own exception class.
"Insertion of character increases its length by 1", this implies that GetStrLen() doesn't calculate the length of the string, but purely returns the value of StrLen initialised at construction and updated with insertion.
You might also want to think about how you're going to test your class. For illustrative purposes, I added a Print() method so that you can look at the contents of the class, but you should probably take a look at something like Cpp Unit Lite.
For what it's worth, I'm including my own implementation. Unlike the other implementations so far, I have chosen to use raw-pointers in the reverse function and its swap helper. I have presumed that using things like std::swap and std::reverse are outside the scope of this examination, but you will want to familiarise yourself with the Standard Library so that you can get on and program without re-inventing wheels.
#include <iostream>
void swap_chars(char* left, char* right) {
char temp = *left;
*left = *right;
*right = temp;
}
class Strings {
private:
char m_buffer[80];
int m_length;
public:
// Constructor
Strings()
:m_length(0)
{
}
// A function for returning the length of the string 'm_buffer'
int GetLength() const {
return m_length;
}
// A function to inser a character 'ch' at the end of the string 'm_buffer'
void InsertChar(char ch) {
if (m_length < sizeof m_buffer) {
m_buffer[m_length++] = ch;
}
}
// A function to reverse the content of the string 'm_buffer'
void Reverse() {
char* left = &m_buffer[0];
char* right = &m_buffer[m_length - 1];
for (; left < right; ++left, --right) {
swap_chars(left, right);
}
}
void Print() const {
for (int index = 0; index < m_length; ++index) {
std::cout << m_buffer[index];
}
std::cout << std::endl;
}
};
int main(int, char**) {
Strings test_string;
char test[] = "This is a test string!This is a test string!This is a test string!This is a test string!\000";
for (char* c = test; *c; ++c) {
test_string.InsertChar(*c);
}
test_string.Print();
test_string.Reverse();
test_string.Print();
// The output of this program should look like this...
// This is a test string!This is a test string!This is a test string!This is a test
// tset a si sihT!gnirts tset a si sihT!gnirts tset a si sihT!gnirts tset a si sihT
return 0;
}
Good luck with the rest of your studies!
void InsertChar(char ch){
str[index] = ch; // *** Not sure if this is correct cuz I was not given int index ***
}
This should be something more like
str[strlen-1]=ch; //overwrite the null with ch
str[strlen]='\0'; //re-add the null
strlen++;
Your teacher gave you very good hints on the question, read it again and try answering yourself. Here's my untested solution:
class Strings {
private:
char str[80];
int StrLen;
public:
// Constructor
Strings() {
StrLen=0;
str[0]=0;
};
// A function for returning the length of the string 'str'
int GetStrLen(void) {
return StrLen;
};
// A function to inser a character 'ch' at the end of the string 'str'
void InsertChar(char ch) {
if(StrLen < 80)
str[StrLen++]=ch;
};
// A function to reverse the content of the string 'str'
void StrReverse(void) {
for(int i=0; i<StrLen / 2; ++i) {
char aux = str[i];
str[i] = str[StrLen - i - 1];
str[StrLen - i - 1] = aux;
}
};
};
When you init the char array, you should set its first element to 0, and the same for index. Thus you get a weird length in GetStrLen since it is up to the gods when you find the 0 you are looking for.
[Update] In C/C++ if you do not explicitly initialize your variables, you usually get them filled with random garbage (the content of the raw memory allocated to them). There are some exceptions to this rule, but the best practice is to always initialize your variables explicitly. [/Update]
In InsertChar, you should (after checking for overflow) use StrLen to index the array (as the comment specifies "inser a character 'ch' at the end of the string 'str'"), then set the new terminating 0 character and increment StrLen.
You don't need index as a member data. You can have it a local variable if you so please in GetStrLen(): just declare it there rather than in the class body. The reason you get a weird value when you return index is because you never initialized it. To fix that, initialize index to zero in GetStrLen().
But there's a better way to do things: when you insert a character via InsertChar() increment the value of StrLen, so that GetStrLen() need only return that value. This will make GetStrLen() much faster: it will run in constant time (the same performance regardless of the length of string).
In InsertChar() you can use StrLen as you index rather than index, which we already determined is redundant. But remember that you must make sure the string terminates with a '\0' value. Also remember to maintain StrLen by incrementing it to make GetStrLen()'s life easier. In addition, you must take the extra step in InsertChar() to avoid a buffer overflow. This happens when the user inserts a character to the string when the length of the string is alreay 79 characters. (Yes, 79: you must spend one character on the terminating null).
I don't see an instruction as to how to behave when that happens, so it must be up to your good judgment call. If the user tries to add the 80th character you might ignore the request and return, or you might set an error flag -- it's up to you.
In your StrReverse() function you have a few mistakes. First, you call GetStrLen() but ignore its return value. Then why call it? Second, you're creating a temporary string and work on that, rather than on the string member of the class. So your function doesn't change the string member, when it should in fact reverse it. And last, you could reverse the string faster by iterating through half of it only.
Work on the member data string. To reverse a string you can swap the first element (character) of the string with its last (not the terminating null, the character just before that!), the second element with the second-to-last and so on. You're done when you arrive at the middle of the string. Don't forget that the string must terminate with a '\0' character.
While you were solving the exam it would also be a good opportunity to teach your instructor a think or two about C++: we don't say f(void) because that belongs to the old days of C89. In C++ we say f(). We also strive in C++ to use class initializer lists whenever we can. Also remind your instructor how important const-correctness is: when a function shouldn't change the object is should be marked as such. int GetStrLen(void) should be int GetStrLen() const.
You don't need to figure out the length. You already know it it is strLen. Also there was nothing in the original question to indicate that the buffer should contain a null terminated string.
int GetStrLen(void){
return strLen;
}
Just using an assertion here but another option is to throw an exception.
void InsertChar(char ch){
assert(strLen < 80);
str[strLen++] = ch;
}
Reversing the string is just a matter of swapping the elements in the str buffer.
void StrRevrse(void){
int n = strLen >> 1;
for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
char c = str[i];
str[i] = str[strLen - i];
str[strLen - i] = c;
}
}
I would use StrLen to track the length of the string. Since the length also indicates the end of the string, we can use that for inserting:
int GetStrLen(void) {
return StrLen;
}
int InsertChar(char ch)
{
if (strLen < sizeof(str))
{
str[StrLen] = ch;
++strLen;
}
}
void StrReverse(void) {
for (int n = 0; n < StrLen / 2; ++n)
{
char tmp = str[n];
str[n] = str[StrLen - n - 1];
str[StrLen - n - 1] = tmp;
}
}
first of all why on you use String.h for the string length?
strlen(char[] array) returns the Lenght or any char array to a int.
Your function return a werid value because you never initialize index, and the array has zero values, first initilize then execute your method.
Hi I have written a code based upon a requirement.
(field1_6)(field2_30)(field3_16)(field4_16)(field5_1)(field6_6)(field7_2)(field8_1).....
this is one bucket(8 fields) of data. we will receive 20 buckets at a time means totally 160 fields.
i need to take the values of field3,field7 & fields8 based upon predefined condition.
if teh input argument is N then take the three fields from 1st bucket and if it is Y i need
to take the three fields from any other bucket other than 1st one.
if argumnet is Y then i need to scan all the 20 buckets one after other and check
the first field of the bucket is not equal to 0 and if it is true then fetch the three fields of that bucket and exit.
i have written the code and its also working fine ..but not so confident that it is effctive.
i am afraid of a crash some time.please suggest below is the code.
int CMI9_auxc_parse_balance_info(char *i_balance_info,char *i_use_balance_ind,char *o_balance,char *o_balance_change,char *o_balance_sign
)
{
char *pch = NULL;
char *balance_id[MAX_BUCKETS] = {NULL};
char balance_info[BALANCE_INFO_FIELD_MAX_LENTH] = {0};
char *str[160] = {NULL};
int i=0,j=0,b_id=0,b_ind=0,bc_ind=0,bs_ind=0,rc;
int total_bukets ;
memset(balance_info,' ',BALANCE_INFO_FIELD_MAX_LENTH);
memcpy(balance_info,i_balance_info,BALANCE_INFO_FIELD_MAX_LENTH);
//balance_info[BALANCE_INFO_FIELD_MAX_LENTH]='\0';
pch = strtok (balance_info,"*");
while (pch != NULL && i < 160)
{
str[i]=(char*)malloc(strlen(pch) + 1);
strcpy(str[i],pch);
pch = strtok (NULL, "*");
i++;
}
total_bukets = i/8 ;
for (j=0;str[b_id]!=NULL,j<total_bukets;j++)
{
balance_id[j]=str[b_id];
b_id=b_id+8;
}
if (!memcmp(i_use_balance_ind,"Y",1))
{
if (atoi(balance_id[0])==1)
{
memcpy(o_balance,str[2],16);
memcpy(o_balance_change,str[3],16);
memcpy(o_balance_sign,str[7],1);
for(i=0;i<160;i++)
free(str[i]);
return 1;
}
else
{
for(i=0;i<160;i++)
free(str[i]);
return 0;
}
}
else if (!memcmp(i_use_balance_ind,"N",1))
{
for (j=1;balance_id[j]!=NULL,j<MAX_BUCKETS;j++)
{
b_ind=(j*8)+2;
bc_ind=(j*8)+3;
bs_ind=(j*8)+7;
if (atoi(balance_id[j])!=1 && atoi( str[bc_ind] )!=0)
{
memcpy(o_balance,str[b_ind],16);
memcpy(o_balance_change,str[bc_ind],16);
memcpy(o_balance_sign,str[bs_ind],1);
for(i=0;i<160;i++)
free(str[i]);
return 1;
}
}
for(i=0;i<160;i++)
free(str[i]);
return 0;
}
for(i=0;i<160;i++)
free(str[i]);
return 0;
}
My feeling is that this code is very brittle. It may well work when given good input (I don't propose to desk check the thing for you) but if given some incorrect inputs it will either crash and burn or give misleading results.
Have you tested for unexpected inputs? For example:
Suppose i_balance_info is null?
Suppose i_balance_info is ""?
Suppose there are fewer than 8 items in the input string, what will this line of code do?
memcpy(o_balance_sign,str[7],1);
Suppose that that the item in str[3] is less than 16 chars long, what will this line of code do?
memcpy(o_balance_change,str[3],16);
My approach to writing such code would be to protect against all such eventualities. At the very least I would add ASSERT() statements, I would usually write explicit input validation and return errors when it's bad. The problem here is that the interface does not seem to allow for any possibility that there might be bad input.
I had a hard time reading your code but FWIW I've added some comments, HTH:
// do shorter functions, long functions are harder to follow and make errors harder to spot
// document all your variables, at the very least your function parameters
// also what the function is suppose to do and what it expects as input
int CMI9_auxc_parse_balance_info
(
char *i_balance_info,
char *i_use_balance_ind,
char *o_balance,
char *o_balance_change,
char *o_balance_sign
)
{
char *balance_id[MAX_BUCKETS] = {NULL};
char balance_info[BALANCE_INFO_FIELD_MAX_LENTH] = {0};
char *str[160] = {NULL};
int i=0,j=0,b_id=0,b_ind=0,bc_ind=0,bs_ind=0,rc;
int total_bukets=0; // good practice to initialize all variables
//
// check for null pointers in your arguments, and do sanity checks for any
// calculations
// also move variable declarations to just before they are needed
//
memset(balance_info,' ',BALANCE_INFO_FIELD_MAX_LENTH);
memcpy(balance_info,i_balance_info,BALANCE_INFO_FIELD_MAX_LENTH);
//balance_info[BALANCE_INFO_FIELD_MAX_LENTH]='\0'; // should be BALANCE_INFO_FIELD_MAX_LENTH-1
char *pch = strtok (balance_info,"*"); // this will potentially crash since no ending \0
while (pch != NULL && i < 160)
{
str[i]=(char*)malloc(strlen(pch) + 1);
strcpy(str[i],pch);
pch = strtok (NULL, "*");
i++;
}
total_bukets = i/8 ;
// you have declared char*str[160] check if enough b_id < 160
// asserts are helpful if nothing else assert( b_id < 160 );
for (j=0;str[b_id]!=NULL,j<total_bukets;j++)
{
balance_id[j]=str[b_id];
b_id=b_id+8;
}
// don't use memcmp, if ('y'==i_use_balance_ind[0]) is better
if (!memcmp(i_use_balance_ind,"Y",1))
{
// atoi needs balance_id str to end with \0 has it?
if (atoi(balance_id[0])==1)
{
// length assumptions and memcpy when its only one byte
memcpy(o_balance,str[2],16);
memcpy(o_balance_change,str[3],16);
memcpy(o_balance_sign,str[7],1);
for(i=0;i<160;i++)
free(str[i]);
return 1;
}
else
{
for(i=0;i<160;i++)
free(str[i]);
return 0;
}
}
// if ('N'==i_use_balance_ind[0])
else if (!memcmp(i_use_balance_ind,"N",1))
{
// here I get a headache, this looks just at first glance risky.
for (j=1;balance_id[j]!=NULL,j<MAX_BUCKETS;j++)
{
b_ind=(j*8)+2;
bc_ind=(j*8)+3;
bs_ind=(j*8)+7;
if (atoi(balance_id[j])!=1 && atoi( str[bc_ind] )!=0)
{
// length assumptions and memcpy when its only one byte
// here u assume strlen(str[b_ind])>15 including \0
memcpy(o_balance,str[b_ind],16);
// here u assume strlen(str[bc_ind])>15 including \0
memcpy(o_balance_change,str[bc_ind],16);
// here, besides length assumption you could use a simple assignment
// since its one byte
memcpy(o_balance_sign,str[bs_ind],1);
// a common practice is to set pointers that are freed to NULL.
// maybe not necessary here since u return
for(i=0;i<160;i++)
free(str[i]);
return 1;
}
}
// suggestion do one function that frees your pointers to avoid dupl
for(i=0;i<160;i++)
free(str[i]);
return 0;
}
for(i=0;i<160;i++)
free(str[i]);
return 0;
}
A helpful technique when you want to access offsets in an array is to create a struct that maps the memory layout. Then you cast your pointer to a pointer of the struct and use the struct members to extract information instead of your various memcpy's
I would also suggest you reconsider your parameters to the function in general, if you place every of them in a struct you have better control and makes the function more readable e.g.
int foo( input* inbalance, output* outbalance )
(or whatever it is you are trying to do)