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Segmentation fault when accessing array elements in a nested structure in C

👀 Views: 0 đŸ’Ŧ Answers: 1 📅 Created: 2025-06-14
c struct memory-management C

I'm optimizing some code but I need some guidance on I'm stuck trying to I'm a bit lost with I tried several approaches but none seem to work... I tried several approaches but none seem to work... This might be a silly question, but I'm working with a segmentation fault when trying to access elements of an array that is within a nested structure... I've defined a structure that contains an array of another structure, and I'm attempting to initialize and access its elements. Here's the relevant part of my code: ```c #include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h> typedef struct { int value; } InnerStruct; typedef struct { InnerStruct items[5]; } OuterStruct; int main() { OuterStruct *outer = malloc(sizeof(OuterStruct)); if (outer == NULL) { perror("Failed to allocate memory"); return 1; } for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) { outer->items[i].value = i * 10; } printf("First item value: %d\n", outer->items[0].value); free(outer); return 0; } ``` When I run this code, I get a segmentation fault at the line where I try to access `outer->items[0].value`. I have verified that the memory allocation is successful and I'm able to print values before that line, but somehow I'm still getting this behavior. I suspect it might be an scenario with how I'm defining or accessing the structures. I've also tried replacing `OuterStruct *outer` with `OuterStruct outer` and directly using `outer.items`, but I still encounter the same scenario. Could anyone guide to figure out what I might be missing here? For context: I'm using C on Windows. How would you solve this? This is part of a larger API I'm building. What's the best practice here? This issue appeared after updating to C latest. What am I doing wrong? This is part of a larger application I'm building. I'm working with C in a Docker container on macOS. Thanks in advance!