What does Bus error: 10 mean? And how to fix this error

Question

below is my code

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


char* get_string(char* question);

int main(void)
{
    char* name = get_string("Enter a name:");
    printf("%s\n", name);
    return 0;
}

char* get_string(char* question)
{
    printf("%s", question);
    char* input;
    scanf("%s", input);
    return input;
}

It compiles just fine without any warning or errors, but when I run the code I got this

Bus error: 10

Answer 1

In your function get_string() you try to take input using scanf() using a uninitialized pointer called input.

Since input points to nothing, reading into it causes undefined behaviour.

To fix it you should allocate memory for your string:

char *input = malloc(sizeof(char) * input_size);

Also don't forget to free() your input buffer when you are done using it:

free(input);