Segmentation Fault after declaring char* inside function

[bergjensen33]

Hello. I was trying to make a name generator for my game project, but to no success. I have defined a global char* names[], as well as some other C-style string arrays to store things like locations, races and titles. My objective is to call the function, which will randomly generate a name following the [name]->[", the "]->[adjective]->[" "]->[race]->[" from "]->[location] format. But that's not the issue, I managed to work that part out, the problem is the program gives me a Segfault error when I run it, and as far as I have tested, it happens as soon as I declare the variable that will serve as the return value. What could I possibly be doing wrong? All tips are appreciated.
Follows the function:

char* generateName()
{
	char* strRet = {'\0'};
	printf("DEBUG: DECLARED STRRET. ITS VALUE IS: \"%s\"", strRet);
	strcat(strRet, name[randomInt() % (sizeof(name) / sizeof(name[0]))]);
	strcat(strRet, " the ");
	strcat(strRet, adjective[randomInt() % (sizeof(adjective) / sizeof(adjective[0]))]);
	strcat(strRet, " ");
	strcat(strRet, race[randomInt() % (sizeof(race) / sizeof(race[0]))]);
	strcat(strRet, " from ");
	strcat(strRet, location[randomInt() % (sizeof(location) / sizeof(location[0]))]);
	return strRet;
}

PS. You might be wondering why I'm not using std::strings instead of C-style strings. Answer is I'm using Ncurses, so it makes it everything easier. Of course I could make a workaround to make it all work, but I just prefer it the way it is.

[jlb]

You may want to declare strRet as an array instead of a single character. And remember that the first argument of strcat must have an array size that is large enough to hold the combined C-string.

What exactly are you trying to do with that second parameter?

Do you realize you are trying to return a local C-string from that function and that is not allowed.

If I were you I would stick with std::string for most operations. If you need to send a C-string to one of the "curses" functions then just use the std::string.c_str() function to convert the std::string to a C-string.

Also why all the global variables? You really need to learn how to use parameters to pass values to and from your functions.

[bergjensen33]

Yep, that sounds about right, I guess I'll use std::string then, and thanks for the tips.
The second parameter is selecting a random index from the respective C-style strings array.

[thmm]

The problem is called "dangling pointer". When generateName returns strRet goes out of scope and gets destroyed. Still the pointer in the receiving functions points to it.

Consider using std::string. If necessary you can pass a char* to ncurses with data() or c_str().

Another option is to allocate strRet on the heap with malloc and return it. However the receiving function has to remember to free it.

[jlb]

The second parameter is selecting a random index from the respective C-style strings array.

Also remember that the both parameters of strcat() must be C-strings, not just an array of char. A C-string is an array of char that is terminated by the end of string character '\0'.