From: "Tony O'Bryan" <aho450s AT nic DOT smsu DOT edu>
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject: Re: Prog works only in debugging (!)
Date: Sun, 14 Dec 1997 08:16:22 -0600
Organization: Southwest Missouri State University
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Message-ID: <3493EA36.6889@nic.smsu.edu>
References: <344B8C3A DOT 96239E8F AT LSTM DOT Ruhr-UNI-Bochum DOT De> <19971214030100 DOT WAA05923 AT ladder01 DOT news DOT aol DOT com>
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Following is a commented standard C solution:

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/*
 * Your code mixes C++ with C, which will not compile as C code.  I'm
 * assuming you are studying C and not C++, so here is a fixed program that
 * reversed strings.
 */
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

char *Reverse(char *String)
  {
  int                           Length = strlen(String);
  char                        * Copy = (char *)malloc(Length + 1);
  int                           Offset;

  /*
   * The above line mallocs the length of the string + 1 byte for the
   * terminating zero (which is how strings are terminated in C).  Since
   * Copy is just a pointer to memory, you MUST allocate memory for Copy to
   * point to.  Otherwise the program will not run properly (if it runs at
   * all).
   * malloc() returns NULL if the memory couldn't be allocated, so our
   * program must check for the condition.  If the return value is NULL, then
   * the program can't continue.  Since the return type of Reverse() is a
   * pointer, common practice advises us to return NULL if an error occurs.
   *
   */
  if (Copy == NULL)
    return NULL;

  /*
   * Set the memory pointed-to by Copy to all zeros.  This will ensure that
   * the string has a terminating zero and will set the memory to a known
   * value.
   */
  memset(Copy,0,Length + 1);

  /*
   * Now go through the string backwards to build Copy
   */
  for (Offset = 0;Offset < Length;Offset++)
    Copy[Offset] = String[Length - Offset - 1];

  /*
   * Return the copied string to the caller.  Don't forget that Copy was
   * allocated from the memory pool by Reverse(), but not yet returned to the
   * memory pool (this would be foolish to do since Copy hasn't been used by
   * the caller yet).  So be sure the calling program frees the memory after
   * it uses Copy (this is done in main() below).
   */

  return Copy;
  }

int main(void)
  {
  char                          String[] = "The string itself is";
  char                        * Copy = Reverse(String);

  if (Copy == NULL)
    {
    printf("Copy returned NULL.  Ending program prematurely.\n");
    return 1;
    }

  printf("\"%s\" is: %s\n",String,Copy);
  free(Copy);

  return 0;
  }

/*
 * Compile this program with the following command-line:
 *
 * gcc -Wall -s reverse.c -o reverse.exe
 *
 */


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