segmentation fault when connecting to mysql database with c - mysql

Question

Does anyone know why the following would cause a segmentation fault when run?
#include <mysql.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
void main(void)
{
printf("MySQL client version : %s\n", mysql_get_client_info());
MYSQL *conn=NULL;
mysql_init(conn);
char *server = "localhost";
char *user = "root";
char *password = "pass";
char *database = "weather";
char *table ="room_temp";
char *tst_qry="INSERT INTO `weather`.`room_temp` (`idx`, `date`, `temperature`) VALUES (NULL, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP, '10')";
mysql_real_connect(conn, server, user, password, database, 0, NULL, 0);
}
I complied as follows
gcc -o mysql $(mysql_config --cflags) mysql.c $(mysql_config --libs)
The output was as follows,
MySQL client version : 5.5.31
Segmentation fault
Please help!

Answer 1

The allocated new object isn't stored in your code. Hence you are passing the NULL to mysql_real_connect().
Change this line:
mysql_init(conn);
to:
conn = mysql_init(conn);
or rather directly:
conn = mysql_init(NULL);

Answer 2

You're passing a NULL-pointer to mysql_real_connect. According to the documentation mysql_init returns an initialized MYSQL object (when passed a NULL-pointer). Change your code either to this to use the return value:
conn = mysql_init(conn);
or this, to have mysql_init fill the object:
MYSQL conn; /* note that this isn't a pointer */
mysql_init(&conn);
...
mysql_real_connect(&conn, ...);