"segfault" error from random seed number?

Question

So, my code randomly started having an issue when it tried to read an input file using the following lines:

char inputName[20] = "params.txt";
FILE *inputFile = fopen(inputName, "r");
char *ptr;

The code is supposed to open a text file, where the following lines of code:

int count = 1;
char singleLine[10];
double parameters[4];
while (count < 5){
    parameters[count] = strtod(fgets(singleLine, 10, inputFile), &ptr);
    count = count + +1;
}
h = parameters[1];
N_steps = parameters[2];
titleNumber = parameters[3];
seed_number = parameters[4];
fclose(inputFile);
inputFile = 0;

And assigns the following values from a .txt files to variables

1.0

100000

1000

33

With the last integer being used as the seed number for the srand() function. However, I have found that some 4-digit and above integers for the seed value cause the code to generate a segmentation fault error. Does anyone know why that is? Is there a range of acceptable seed values for the random number generator function in c?

Answer 1

Indices for arrays in C start from 0. If you have an array with N elements then the valid range of indices is [0, N).

So relative to your code snippet the valid range of indices for this array

double parameters[4];

is [0, 4 ). The expression parameters[4] accesses memory beyond the array that results in undefined behavior.