PSET6 Indexes Doesn't Work

Question

Regardless of what I do, I can't seem to get the indexes function working. It always seems to return null.

char* indexes(const char* path) {


char* inPHP = malloc(sizeof(char) * strlen(path) + 11);
char* inHTML = malloc(sizeof(char) * strlen(path) + 11);

strcpy(inPHP, path);
strcat(inPHP, "/index.php");

strcpy(inHTML, path);
strcat(inHTML, "/index.html");

if (access(inPHP, R_OK) != -1 ) {
    return inPHP;
    free(inPHP);
    free(inHTML);
} else if (access(inHTML, R_OK) != -1) {
    return inHTML;
    free(inPHP);
    free(inHTML);
} else {
    free(inHTML);
    free(inPHP);
    return NULL;

}

}

Also could someone please explain to me how I could more efficiently free my malloc'd memory? From my understanding the program will stop running after the return function and my free functions are after I return inPHP and inHTML. How could I free those functions while still being able to return those paths?

EDIT: By the way - I have a folder named test with a "index.html" in the directory my c file is in. I am inputting my "path" as "/test".

Answer 1

First, verify your directory structure is correct. From the instructions, when the distro code is unzipped your "tree" from the pset6 directory should look like this:

.  
├── Makefile  
├── public  
│   ├── cat.html  
│   ├── cat.jpg  
│   ├── favicon.ico  
│   ├── hello.html  
│   ├── hello.php  
│   └── test  
│       └── index.html   
└── server.c  

Observe that "test" is a subdirectory of "public", and not in the same directory as the .c file. Assuming 1) your directory structure is like this, 2) you started server with the public directory as your document root, and 3) your indexes function is correct, a request to https://ide50-username.cs50.io/test in a browser will return index.html. (with your username, of course).

You need to check this allocation char* inHTML = malloc(sizeof(char) * strlen(path) + 11); too. It does not accomodate the null-byte.

Re your question:

How could I free those functions while still being able to return those paths?

Free the variable(s) you don't need before the return, just as you do here:

free(inHTML);
free(inPHP);
return NULL;

From the instructions for indexes():

In the first of those cases, this function should dynamically allocate memory on the heap for the returned string.

so it is expecting indexes() to do the allocation for the returned string.

Answer 2

char* inPHP = malloc(sizeof(char) * strlen(path) + 11);

I do not think that is the problem maybe add a byte more

if (access(inPHP, R_OK) != -1 )

I think your problem is, you just have to check that it exists and if so return the appropriate value for this just F_OK and the value returned by access == 0 if successful