Segmentation fault and mysterious loop behavior - c++

Question

I am working on a homework assignment with a few specific requirements. There must be a class named TestScores that takes an array of scores as its argument. It throws an exception if any scores are negative or greater than 100. Finally, it must have a member function that returns an average for all the scores. I wasn't clever enough to find a way to only pass the array into the constructor, so I also added in an int that tells the size of the array.
Running the code (I haven't even gotten around to testing the exceptions yet), I keep getting a Segmentation fault error. Valgrind and gdb have been rather unhelpful, outputting messages like:
==9765== Jump to the invalid address stated on the next line
==9765== at 0x2200000017: ???
Even more mysteriously (to me at least), in the for loop in the client code, my incrementor, i, somehow gets bumped from 0 to a seemingly random two-digit number right after creating the TestScores object. In previous versions, before I started using rand() to populate the array, i just never incremented and did the infinite loop thing.
Here's the contents of TestScores.cpp:
#include <iostream>
using std::cout;
using std::endl;
#include "TestScores.h"
#include <stdexcept>
using std::runtime_error;
// Constructor.
TestScores::TestScores(int a[], int s):
_SIZE(s), _scores()
{
// Look at each item in a[], see if any of them are invalid numbers, and
// only if the number is ok do we populate _scores[] with the value.
for (int i = 0; i < _SIZE; ++i)
{
if (a[i] < 0)
{
throw runtime_error ("Negative Score");
}
else if (a[i] > 100)
{
throw runtime_error ("Excessive Score");
}
_scores[i] = a[i];
cout << _scores[i] << " ";
}
cout << endl;
}
// Finds the arithmetic mean of all the scores, using _size as the number of
// scores.
double TestScores::mean()
{
double total = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < _SIZE; ++i)
{
total += _scores[i];
}
return total / _SIZE;
}
// median() creates an array that orderes the test scores by value and then
// locates the middle value.
double TestScores::median()
{
// Copy the array so we can sort it while preserving the original.
int a[_SIZE];
for (int i = 0; i < _SIZE; ++i)
{
a[i] = _scores[i];
}
// Sort the array using selection sort.
for (int i = 0; i < _SIZE; ++i)
{
int min = a[i];
for (int j = i + 1; j < _SIZE; ++j)
{
if (a[j] < min)
{
min = a[j];
a[j] = a[i];
a[i] = min;
}
}
}
// Now that array is ordered, just pick one of the middle values.
return a[_SIZE / 2];
}
And here's the client code:
#include <iostream>
#include "TestScores.h"
#include <stdexcept>
#include <cstdlib>
#include <ctime>
using std::exception;
using std::cout;
using std::endl;
int main()
{
const int NUM_STUDENTS = 20,
NUM_TESTS = 4;
int test [NUM_TESTS][NUM_STUDENTS];
// Make random seed to populate the arrays with data.
unsigned seed = time(0);
srand(seed);
// Populate the scores for the individual tests graded for the semester.
// These will all be values between 0 and 100.
for (int i = 0; i < NUM_TESTS; ++i)
{
for (int j = 0; j < NUM_STUDENTS; ++j)
{
test[i][j] = rand() % 100;
cout << test[i][j] << " ";
}
cout << endl;
}
// Now we have the data, find the mean and median results for each test.
// All values should be valid, but we'll handle exceptions here.
for (int i = 0; i < NUM_TESTS; ++i)
{
cout << "For Test #" << i + 1 << endl;
try
{
cout << "i = " << i << endl; // i = 0 here.
TestScores results(test[i], NUM_STUDENTS);
cout << "i = " << i << endl; // i = some random number here.
cout << "Mean: " << results.mean() << endl;
cout << "Median:" << results.median() << endl << endl;
}
catch (exception &e)
{
cout << "Error, invalid score: " << e.what() << endl;
}
cout << "For Test #" << i + 1 << endl;
}
return 0;
}
Edit:
The header was requested as well:
#ifndef TEST_SCORES_H
#define TEST_SCORES_H
class TestScores
{
private:
const int _SIZE;
int _scores[];
public:
// Constructor
TestScores(int a[], int);
double mean() const,
median() const;
};
#endif
I played around with making the array dynamic, and didn't initialize the array as empty, which fixed my problems, so that's what I ended up turning in. That leads me to a few follow-up questions.
Before going dynamic, I played around with initializing the array, _scores, by trying to give it the size value that was supposed to already be initialized. This led to compiler problems. I talked with my teacher about that, and he said that you can't allocate space for an array unless there's a hardwired global constant. That is, you can't pass a size value in the constructor to initialize an array. Is that true, and if so, why?
Stepping back a bit, it seems to me that dynamic arrays are better if you need a lot of values, because then you don't need a contiguous block of space in memory. So if you are making small arrays, it seems like a waste of space and time typing to make dynamic arrays. Is this untrue? Should I be doing all arrays from now on as dynamic? This experience certainly changed my opinion on the utility of regular arrays, at least as they pertain to classes.
Also, though I got full credit on the assignment, I feel like I violated the spirit by passing an argument for size (since the literal problem statement reads: "The class constructor should accept an array of test scores as its argument"). Aside from a hardwired global constant or having a size argument, is there a way to pass just the array? I swear I spent a good hour trying to think of a way to do this.

Answer 1

It seems you don't initialize _scores at all. You need _scores = new int[s]; at the top of the constructor (and also delete[] s; in the destructor).
Without initializing _scores, you write things to undefined memory locations.

Answer 2

Without TestScores.h one has to guess, but given what you say about the value of i being corrupted in the loop where you're creating the TestScores objects, that points to your _scores member variable not being properly initialized and when you're trying to load it you are actually trashing memory.
Once TestScores.h is visible, I'll revisit this answer taking the file into account.
Updated now that TestScores.h is available.
The problem is that you are not initializing _scores. You are not actually allocating any memory to hold the array, let alone setting the pointer to point to that memory. So when you attempt to store things into the array you're just trashing memory somewhere.
The first line in your constructor should be:
_scores = new int[_SIZE];
That will allocate memory to hold _SIZE ints and set _scores to point to that memory. Then your assignments to _scores[i] will actually go into defined memory belonging to your program.
Of course, you also have to release this memory (C++ won't do it for you) when instances of TestScore get destroyed. So you will need to define and implement a destructor for TestScores and that destructor needs to contain the line:
delete [] _scores;
This will free the block of memory that _scores points to. You can read docs on the delete operation to see why the [] have to be there in this case.