Segfault help

[dikanst]

I'm getting a segmentation fault in one of my functions, which basically adds an employee structure to an array of employee pointers. Here's a condensed version of my C program:

typedef struct
 {
  char *firstName;
  ......
  ......
 } Employee;
 
void hireEmployee(Employee *array[])
 {
  .....
  char *first;
  printf("Enter New Employee's First Name: ");
  scanf("%s", &first);
  strcpy(array[0]->firstName, first);
  .....
  .....
 }
 
main()
 {
  Employee *employeeArray[5];
  for(int index = 0; index < 5; index++)
   {
    employeeArray[index] = (Employee *)malloc(sizeof(Employee));
    employeeArray[index] = NULL;
   }
 
   hireEmployee(employeeArray);
   .......
 }

The segfault occurs when line 14 is executed. I obviously don't have a good understanding of what a segfault is, so any help from the experts on this board would be appreciated.

[JosAH]

If you have a pointer to T that pointer doesn't necessarily point to a T (you need
space for a T to point to). See the firstname; it's a pointer to a char (or more
of them consecutively). Where are those chars? You didn't allocate room for
the first name; the firstname pointer points into la-la-land, hence the segfault.

kind regards,

Jos