C -- Reading from file into array of char*

[Halsafar]

C only.

First em I on the right track? I am just trying to read line by line and store each line into a char**.
It works, but maybe I missed something MUCH simpler.

 char ***ppNames; // <-- this is a parameter for the function thats why you see the extra dereference

  //Begin reading the file
  int iLine = 0;
  while (!feof(pFile)) {
    //Read in the name
    char pName[255];
    fgets(pName, 255, pFile);
    char *pNewLinePos = strrchr(pName, '\n');
    if (pNewLinePos != NULL) {
     (*pNewLinePos) = '\0';
    }

    //Reallocate and zero the new memory
    (*ppNames) = (char**)realloc((*ppNames), (iLine+1) * (sizeof(char**)));
    memset((*ppNames)+iLine, 0, sizeof(char*));
    
    //Reallocate a new char pointer
    (*ppNames)[iLine] = (char*)realloc((*ppNames)[iLine], strlen(pName));

    //Copy in the name into the char array
    strcpy((*ppNames)[iLine], pName);    

    //Next Line
    iLine++;
  } 

Second, I am trying to free the array of char* and em getting errors:

  for (i = 0; i < iSize; i++) {    
    free(*(ppNames+i)); //Causes error, invalid pointer deletion
    free(ppNames+i); //Works fine
  } 

Any advice?

[aewarnick]

There is almost NEVER a time when you need to 0 memory.

[Halsafar]

Yes but I found one. Realloc, if the ptr* you pass in is not NULL it will try to resize the memory location. Of course in the above example if the memory is not zero'd then a Segmentation Fault will occur because the next realloc() will try and resize an invalid pointer.

I could prolly just set it to zero lol. Now that I look it over.