C - Array of Char Arrays

Question

Im trying to work with the example in the K and R book for this topic, but struggling.

I want an array of Char Arrays, whereby each element of the 'Father' Array points to an array of characters (string). Basically, I am reading from a file, line at a time, storing each line into an array, and then trying to store that array, into another array, which I can then sort via qsort.

But I can't seem to get anywhere with this! Anyhelp on my code is much appreciated, i.e. where to go from where I am!

EDIT: The problem is, the printing function isn't printing out my words that should be within the array of arrays, instead its just printing garbage, the main problem is, I'm not sure whether i am de-referencing things correctly, or not at all, whether I am adding it to the array of arrays correctly etc.

Regards.

#define MAXLINES 5000 /* max no. lines to be stored */
#define MAXLEN 1000 /* max length of single line */

char *lineptr[MAXLINES];

void writelines(char *lineptr[], int nlines);

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
 int nlines = 0, i, j, k;
 char line[MAXLEN];
 FILE *fpIn;
 fpIn = fopen(argv[1], "rb");
 while((fgets(line, 65, fpIn)) != NULL) {
     j = strlen(line);
     if (j > 0 && (line[j-1] == '\n')) {
         line[j-1] = '\0';
     }
     if (j > 8) {
         lineptr[nlines++] = line;
     }
 }  
 for(i = 0; i < nlines; i++)
     printf("%s\n", lineptr[i] );
return 0;    
}

Answer 1

A problem is that line[MAXLEN] is an automatic variable, and so each time through the while loop it refers to the same array. You should dynamically allocate line each time through the while loop (line = calloc(MAXLEN, sizeof(char)) before calling fgets). Otherwise fgets always writes to the same memory location and lineptr always points to the same array.