Arrays of Strings, malloc

[Ian Todd]

Hi,
I am trying to read in a list of data from a file. Each line has a string in
its first column. This is what i want to read. I could start by saying
char[1000][] to read in 1000 lines to the array( i think!!).

But I want to use malloc. Each string is at most 50 characters long, and
there may be zero to thousands of lines. How do I actually start the array?
I have seen char **array etc. At first I tried char *array[50] but I think
that gives 50 pointers to chars :( .How do I use malloc to set space for the
array once I know how many lines there are? is it
array=malloc(li nes*sizeof(char *)) ??

Finally, I want to print each of the strings using printf. How do I access
say the 30th line?

I have sucessfully done this a few times with doubles, ints etc, but now
with strings it seems a 'two dimesional' problem and I'm confused with the
pointer aspect of it.

Can anyone start me off on a simple solution?

Thanks
Ian

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[pete]

Ian Todd wrote:

Thanks a lot for your help. I have a basic idea of whats going on. Here is
my test program. The principle has been integrated into my main program and
is working.
#include<stdio. h>
#include<stdlib .h>

int main(void)
{
char (*string)[50];
int i,lines;

lines=5;
string=malloc(l ines* sizeof(*string) );
You neglected to ensure that the return value of malloc
was not NULL, before using it. That's bad.
for(i=0;i<lines ;i++)scanf("%s" ,string[i]);
for(i=0;i<lines ;i++)printf("%s \n",string[i]);
free(string);
return 0;
}

--
pete