Lecture #3: Pointers
Reading: Holmes, Chapters 8 and 9
Handouts: Pointers, Confusion, and All That; num.c; prenv.c
Homework: Adssignment #2, due Thursday, October 16, at 6PM

1. Greetings and felicitations
2. Review precedence table quickly
3. Pointers and addresses
… draw this, show simple example: for(i = 0, p = x; *p; i++, p++);
… * operator, & operator
… pointer arithmetic; why p - x is only legal operation; discuss p - 1, p + 1
4. Pointers and Arrays
… rework above example as arrays
… describe: pointer constant (array name), pointer variable
… difference between int *x and int x[1]
… multiple dimensions: p = &a[0][0] with int a[2][3]
5. Multiply indirect pointers
… show array of pointers
… walk through (and draw) pointer confusion
6. Strings
… NUL byte
… show strcat, strcpy (do shortest versions of this), index
… do sprintf(buf, ģ%s: check out line %dē, filename, lineno);
7. Command-line interface as example of pointer args
… argv, argc; show num x y z
… envp; show printenv PATH
8. Arrays vs. Pointers again
… allocation of arrays
… malloc, free for pointers
… realloc: warn about p = realloc(p, 10000)



Pointers, Confusion, and All That
This very short, very confusing program shows the type of code that programmers who become 
addicted to pointers in C can write.  It also is an excellent exercise in using pointers; if you can read 
this and figure out what it prints, you will be able to read and understand (almost) any use of C 
pointers!  This exercise is from Alan Feuer's marvelous book The C Puzzle Book.

char *c[] = {
	"ENTER",
	"NEW",
	"POINT",
	"FIRST"
};

char **cp[] = {  c+3, c+2, c+1, c };
char ***cpp = cp;

main()
{
	printf("%s", **++cpp );
	printf("%s ", *--*++cpp+3 );
	printf("%s", *cpp[-2]+3 );
	printf("%s\n", cpp[-1][-1]+1 );
}



num.c
This program prints a file, putting the file name and line number in front of each line. For 
example, if the file hello contains:
hi there
how are you?
the command
num hello
prints
hello,   1:hi there
hello,   2:how are you?
And now, the program!
/*
 * program to print a file with file name and line number
 * prefixing each line
 * invocation:
 *	num			print stdin with line numbers
 *	num arg1 ...	print contents of arg1 with line numbers
 * exit code: number of files not opened
 * author: Matt Bishop, bishop@cs.ucdavis.edu, 9/16/96
 */
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

/*
 * print the given file, with the file name and line
 * number in front
 * arguments:	fn	pointer to file name
 *	     	fp	file pointer
 */
void cat(char *fn, FILE *fp)
{
	register int c;			/* input character */
	register int lno = 0;		/* line number */
	register int nlstate = 1;	/* 1 if last char a newline */

	/*
	 * read the file
	 */
	while((c = getc(fp)) != EOF){
		/* was the previous char a newline */
		if (nlstate){
			/* one more line */
			lno++;
			/* print the line number and file name */
			if (fn == NULL) printf("%4d: ", lno);
			else		printf("%s,%4d: ", fn, lno);
			/* we now clear the record of the newline */
			nlstate = 0;
		}
		/* print the character */
		putchar(c);
		/* if it's a newline, set the flag */
		if (c == '\n')
			nlstate = 1;
	}
}

/*
 * the main routine
 */
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
	register int nerr = 0;	/* nuber of files not opened */
	register char **a;	/* used to walk argument list */
	register FILE *fp;	/* pointer to file being processed */

	/* 
	 * no argument -- use stdin
	 */
	if (argc == 1){
		cat(NULL, stdin);
		return(EXIT_SUCCESS);
	}

	/*
	 * walk the arg list, doing each file
	 */
	for(a = &argv[1]; *a != NULL; a++)
		/* open the file */
		if ((fp = fopen(*a, "r")) == NULL){
			/* oops ... say what happened */
			perror(*a);
			nerr++;
		}
		else{
			/* print the file */
			cat(*a, fp);
		}
	
	/*
	 * status is the number of files not opened
	 */
	return(nerr);
}



prenv.c
This program prints all environment variables that are exported to the subprocess. If no 
arguments are given, it prints all the environment variables and their values; if arguments ar 
givn, it prints the values of those environment variables.
/*
 * program to print environment variables
 * invocation:
 *	prenv		print argument list
 *	prenv arg1 ...	print value of argument(s)
 * exit code: number of environment variables not found
 * author: Matt Bishop, bishop@cs.ucdavis.edu, 9/16/96
 */
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <strings.h>
#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, char *argv[], char *envp[])
{
	register int i;		/* counter in for loops */
	register int narg;	/* number of current argument */
	register int len;	/* length of current argument */
	register int found;	/* 1 if env. variable found */
	register int exstat = 0;	/* exit status code */

	/*
	 * no arguments; just print the environment
	 * variables and their values
	 */
	if (argc == 1){
		/* just loop and print */
		for(i = 0; envp[i] != NULL; i++)
			printf("%s\n", envp[i]);
		/* all done! */
		return(EXIT_SUCCESS);
	}

	/*
	 * arguments given; just print the values
	 * associated with these named variables
	 */
	for(narg = 1; argv[narg] != NULL; narg++){
		/* just an optimization ... */
		len = strlen(argv[narg]);
		/* assume no such variable */
		found = 0;
		/*
		 * now look for the variable
		 */
		for(i = 0; envp[i] != NULL; i++)
			/* see if this one is it*/
			if (strncmp(envp[i], argv[narg], len) == 0){
				/* name= means value follows = */
				if (envp[i][len] == '='){
					printf("%s\n", envp[i] + len + 1);
					found++;
				}
				/* name means value is empty */
				/* anything else, it doesn't match */
				else if (!envp[i][len]){
					putchar('\n');
					found++;
				}
			}
		/*
		 * did we find it?
		 */
		if (!found){
			/* nope -- print error message */
			fprintf(stderr, "%s: no such variable\n",
								   argv[narg]);
			/* one more unknown environment variable */
			exstat++;
		}

	}

	/*
	 * return number of unknown environment variables
	 */
	return(exstat);
}

Pointers, Confusion, and All That	ECS 40 ­ FALL 1997	Page 3


num.c	ECS 40 ­ FALL 1997	Page 4


prenv.c	ECS 40 ­ FALL 1997	Page 8