Need more efficient way to append character arrays

Hey my character array stores a list of items but my implementaion is very inefficient. Here is what I do:

1. I Create a buffer of 100 chars.
2. My function search for the items in a text file.
3. If the list goes over 100 chars then i create new char * and move all the list to the new one.

Quote:

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3. If the list goes over 100 chars then i create new char * and move all the list to the new one.

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step 3 is my problem because I'm creating a new buffer for the whole list everytime when the list needs more space.

Is it possible to append the new buffer to the old list, instead of creating a new buffer for the whole list?

Thanx in advance

PS: I can't use linked list because I need to pass the items back to client app.

Code:

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#define SIZE 100
 char *buf;
 int counter=1;
 buf = (char*) malloc(SIZE);
..................
// we need more space
 buf = realloc(buf,++counter * SIZE); // add 100 bytes

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The new buffer has all the old stuff at the start, plus free space at the end

realloc will work with new and delete?

thanx again

You shouldn't assume that it does, but it will at least with the MSVC CRT implementation.

Two more question, why every c++ book tells you to use new instead of malloc?
Malloc is suitable if the buffer goes over 2000 character?

Thanks

a) Because you don't need to cast the pointer returned from malloc.
b) new knows the size of a type
int *p = new int[100];
is better than
int *p = (int*)malloc(100 * sizeof(int));
c) ONLY new calls object constructors!

Saying it another way:

new is less prone to errors in typing, and is standard for C++.
You have to use it to create new instances of a class.

For C, malloc or calloc are standard.

You can use realloc for now with MSVC++. Just watch porting it to another compiler.