Pointers in structure with dynamic memory allocation-CodePudding

I am attempting to create a structure (2nd) in a structure (1st) with dynamic memory allocation. For the sequence of steps below (case 1), where I call malloc for a pointer to the 2nd structure before calling realloc for the 1st structure, I see garbage when printing the value of the member (str[0].a1) in the first structure. If I place the same realloc code before malloc (case 2), there are no issues.

#include<stdio.h>
#include<stdlib.h>

typedef struct string2_t {
    int a2;
} string2;

typedef struct string1_t {
    int a1;
    string2 * b;
} string1;


string1 * str = NULL;
int size = 0;

string1 test(int val){

    // case 2
    //str = (string1 *) realloc(str, size*sizeof(string1));

    string1 S;
    S.a1 = val;
    size  = 1;
    S.b = (string2 *) malloc(2*sizeof(string2));
    S.b[0].a2 = 11;
    S.b[1].a2 = 12;

    // case1
    str = (string1 *) realloc(str, size*sizeof(string1));
    
    return S;
}

int main() {
    size  = 1;
    str = (string1 *) malloc(size*sizeof(string1));
    str[0] = test(10);
    printf("value of a:%d\n",str[0].a1);
    str[1] = test(20);
    printf("value of a:%d\n",str[0].a1);
    return(0);
}

I can see that memory location changes for case 1, but I don't quite understand why doesn't pointer point to the right contents (str[0].a1 shows junk). I haven't returned the address of 1st structure before realloc, so I feel it should have worked. Could someone explain why it's pointing to garbage?

CodePudding user response：

As has been stated by several in the comments, lines like this cause undefined behavior:

str[0] = test(10);

The test() function reallocates str, and this is not sequenced with retrieving the address of str[0] as the location to store the result. It's very likely to be compiled as if it had been written

string1 *temp = str;
temp[0] = test(10);

temp caches the old address of str from before the realloc(), and this is invalid after the function returns.

Change your code to:

string1 temp = test(10);
str[0] = temp;

Better design would be to reorganize the code so that all maintenance of the str array is done in one place. test() should be a black box that just allocates the string1 object, while main() allocates and reallocates str when assigning to it.