pset5 root node defitnion (trie)

Question

I'm trying to figure out where/how to define the root node of my trie in dictionary.c. I have declared my struct node as follows:

typedef struct node 
{
    bool is_word;
    struct node* children[27];
}
node;

To my understanding, I need a (pointer to) the root node that can be used by both load and check, so I can't define it in load or check. However, when I try to do

node* root = malloc(sizeof(node));

outsude of either function, the compiler throws me "initializer element is not a compile-time constant".

How do I fix this?

Answer 1

It's actually a simple fix. Since it's something that you would either know or not know, here it is. You declare the pointer variable as a global outside of a function, but you malloc space for it inside of main or another function. It's the = malloc(...) part that's killing you here. You can't do that outside of main or another function.

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