A simple C++ shared memory program written on linux: segmentation fault

#include <stdio.h> 
#include <sys/shm.h> 
#include <sys/stat.h> 
#include <string>
#include <vector>
#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

struct LOCK {
  string name;
  string type;
  vector <string> pids;
};

int main () 

{

  int segment_id; 

  LOCK* shared_memory; 

  struct shmid_ds shmbuffer; 

  int segment_size; 

  const int shared_segment_size = 0x6400; 



  /* Allocate a shared memory segment.  */ 

  segment_id = shmget (IPC_PRIVATE, shared_segment_size, 

                     IPC_CREAT | IPC_EXCL | S_IRUSR | S_IWUSR); 

  /* Attach the shared memory segment.  */ 

  shared_memory = (LOCK*) shmat (segment_id, 0, 0); 

  printf ("shared memory attached at address %pn", shared_memory); 

  /* Determine the segment's size. */ 

  shmctl (segment_id, IPC_STAT, &shmbuffer); 

  segment_size  =               shmbuffer.shm_segsz; 

  printf ("segment size: %dn", segment_size); 

  /* Write a string to the shared memory segment.  */ 

  //sprintf (shared_memory, "Hello, world."); 
  shared_memory -> name = "task 1";
  shared_memory -> type = "read";
  (shared_memory -> pids).push_back("12345");
  (shared_memory -> pids).push_back("67890");

  /* Detach the shared memory segment.  */ 

  shmdt (shared_memory); 



  /* Reattach the shared memory segment, at a different address.  */ 

  shared_memory = (LOCK*) shmat (segment_id, (void*) 0x5000000, 0); 

  printf ("shared memory reattached at address %pn", shared_memory); 

  /* Print out the string from shared memory.  */ 

  //printf ("%sn", shared_memory -> name); 
  cout << "Name of the shared memory: " + shared_memory -> name << endl;

  /* Detach the shared memory segment.  */ 

  shmdt (shared_memory); 



  /* Deallocate the shared memory segment.  */ 

  shmctl (segment_id, IPC_RMID, 0); 



  return 0; 

} 

I got the code from a tutorial on shared memory. It worked until I defined struct LOCK and tried to write LOCKs instead of char* into the shared memory.

Could someone please help me figure out the problem here that causes the segmentation fault?

Answer

You are placing vectors and strings into shared memory. Both those classes allocate memory of their own, which will be allocated within the address space of whatever process generates the allocation, and will produce a segfault when accessed from the other process. You could try specifying allocators to use that shared memory, but since in C++03 allocators are assumed to be stateless I’m not sure if it will be possible.

Consider checking out how Boost.Interprocess does it.