Wrong value when inserting into a linked list in c-CodePudding

I am trying to insert words into a hash table and it looks like it works but when I try to print the word inside the node (just to check if its still correct) I get a bogus value. When my code prompts for the word I said 'Hey' and when it prompts for place I said '5'. The string that is printed out(which is supposed to be the word inside the node) is HH9[]A\A]A^A_f. What is happening to the word inside the node and am I inserting the node correctly?

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

typedef struct node
{
    char word[20];
    struct node *next;
}
node;

int main (void)
{
    node* table[10];
 
    char wrd[10];
    
    printf("Word to insert: ");
    fgets(wrd, 10, stdin);
    
    int place; 
    printf("Place to insert word: ");
    scanf("%d", &place);
    
    
    node *n = malloc(sizeof(node));
        
    if(n == NULL)
    {
        return 1;
    }
        
    strcpy(n->word, wrd);
        
    if(table[place] == NULL)
    {
        n = table[place];
        n->next = NULL;
    }
    else
    {
        n->next = table[place];
        
        n = table[place];
    }
    
    printf("Word inside node: %s \n" , n->word);
}

EDIT

I changed the code and tried to implement it on a larger scale but my while loop gives me a segfault. This is the function I put it in:

    FILE* dct = fopen ("/dictionaries/large", "r");
    char *wrd = NULL;
    
    while(fscanf(dct, "%s", wrd) != EOF)
    {

        int place = hash(wrd);
        
        node *n = malloc(sizeof(node));
        node *anchor = NULL;
        node *end = NULL;
        
        if(n == NULL)
        {
            return 1;
        }
        
        strcpy(n->word, wrd);

        n->next = NULL;

        if (!end)    //Initial state
            anchor = end = n;
        else        //Every following node.
            end = end->next = n;
        
        strcpy(n->word, wrd);
        
        n->next = table[place];

        table[place] = n;
        
        counter  ;
    }
    
    return false;

It has to read from the dictionary file and load the word into memory(or a hash table).

CodePudding user response：

A linked list is a linked list because it does not have a fixed size. The table array is therefor superfluous. What you need for your linked list to work is to remember the anchor and nothing more.

A small example:

Node *anchor = NULL;
Node *end = NULL;
Node *node = malloc(sizeof(Node));

node->next = NULL;

if (!end)    //Initial state
    anchor = end = node;
else        //Every following node.
    end = end->next = node;

At this point, you can still access the node you've just filled. Don't forget to iterate over your list later and free those allocations though.

CodePudding user response：

This code doesn't make any sense:

    if(table[place] == NULL)
    {
        n = table[place]; // since we know table[place] is null, that sets n to null!
        n->next = NULL;   // We just set n to NULL, we can't access n->next!
    }
    else
    {
        n->next = table[place]; // This sets n to a garbage value since table[place] was never assigned a value
   
        n = table[place]; // This leaks the value we malloc'ed. We were supposed to link it to the list!
    }