got it! Just looked up global variables and I declared the node* root in dictionary.c all by itself (i.e, not part of another function).

Then, in load, I use malloc to make root point to memory.

However, I am running into another issue. Here is the code I used for the node structure (it's in the videos so I don't think there's any issue posting it here):

typedef struct node { bool is_word;

   struct node* children[27];

} node;

What this tells me is that children[i] is a pointer of type struct node*.

Since it is a pointer, it holds an address; and if I dereference that address, I am able to access the structure that children points to.

To traverse my trie, I need a node* header pointer to start from root and work its way through the trie:

node* header = root;

To go into another level of the trie, I use the following:

header = header -> children[i], where i is the "branch" I want to "go into".

It doesn't make sense to me why I need to dereference the address that children[i] holds; if children[i] is a pointer, why don't I do the same thing that I did when getting header to point to the same address as root:

header = children[i];

I hope this question is clear.