calling opendir and readdir is changing my char array

Question

This is the code i have so far, it finds where the root is fine, but when i add the line:

printf("        name: %s\n", readdir(opendir(cur_spot))->d_name);

it changes cur_spot and adds weird characters to it (filename: .~?) is what it prints.. any idea why this is happening?

#include <time.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <dirent.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <sys/types.h>

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
    struct stat file_stats;
    struct stat parent_stats;
    struct dirent temp_dir;

    char cwd_name[256]; //directory name
    char cur_spot[256]; //current directory spot

    cur_spot[0] = '.';
    stat(cur_spot, &file_stats);
    printf("filename: %s\n", cur_spot);
    printf(" inode: %ld\n", file_stats.st_ino);


    strcat(cur_spot, ".");
    stat(cur_spot, &parent_stats);
    printf("filename: %s\n", cur_spot);
    printf(" inode: %ld\n", parent_stats.st_ino);

    while(file_stats.st_ino != parent_stats.st_ino) {
        printf("not at root yet\n\n");

        stat(cur_spot, &file_stats);
        printf("    current child\n");
        printf("        inode: %ld\n", file_stats.st_ino);
        printf("        name: %s\n", readdir(opendir(cur_spot))->d_name);
        strcat(cur_spot, "/..");
        stat(cur_spot, &parent_stats);
        printf("    current parent\n");
        printf("        inode: %ld\n", parent_stats.st_ino);
    }
        printf("at root\n");


    return 0;
}

Answer 1

This works fine for me on GCC:

#include <time.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <dirent.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <sys/types.h>

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
    struct stat file_stats;
    struct stat parent_stats;
    struct dirent temp_dir;
    DIR *dirp;

    char cwd_name[256]; //directory name
    char cur_spot[256]; //current directory spot

    strcpy(cur_spot,".");  // <------------ changed
    stat(cur_spot, &file_stats);
    printf("filename: %s\n", cur_spot);
    printf(" inode: %ld\n", file_stats.st_ino);


    strcat(cur_spot, ".");
    stat(cur_spot, &parent_stats);
    printf("filename: %s\n", cur_spot);
    printf(" inode: %ld\n", parent_stats.st_ino);

    while(file_stats.st_ino != parent_stats.st_ino) {
        printf("not at root yet\n\n");

        stat(cur_spot, &file_stats);
        printf("    current child\n");
        printf("        inode: %ld\n", file_stats.st_ino);
        dirp=opendir(cur_spot); // <----------------added
        printf("        name: %s\n", readdir(dirp)->d_name);  // <----changed
        closedir(dirp); // <------------------------added
        strcat(cur_spot, "/..");
        stat(cur_spot, &parent_stats);
        printf("    current parent\n");
        printf("        inode: %ld\n", parent_stats.st_ino);
    }
        printf("at root\n");


    return 0;
}