Following are the reasons for the segmentation fault to occur:

• While trying to dereference NULL POINTERS.
• While trying to write or update the read-only memory or non-existent memory not accessible by the program such as code segment, kernel structures, etc.
• While trying to dereference an uninitialized pointer that MIGHT have been pointing to INVALID memory.
• While trying to dereference a pointer that was recently freed using the free function.
• While accessing the array beyond the boundary.

Some of the ways where we can avoid Segmentation fault are:

• Initializing Pointer PROPERLY: Assign addresses to the pointers properly. For instance:
  • We can also assign the address of the matrix, vectors or using functions like calloc, malloc etc.
  • Only important thing is to assign value to the pointer before accessing it.

• MINIMIZE using pointers: Most of the functions in Embedded C such as scanf, require that address should be sent as a parameter to them. In cases like these, as best practices, we declare a variable and send the address of that variable to that function as shown below:

  In the same way, while sending the address of variables to custom-defined functions, we can use the & parameter instead of using pointer variables to access the address.

• Troubleshooting: Make sure that every component of the program like pointers, array subscripts, & operator, * operator, array accessing, etc as they can be likely candidates for segmentation error. Debug the statements line by line to identify the line that causes the error and investigate them.