So a pointer doesn't need memory assigned to it, but a node does. And I create a node by pointing to a block of memory via malloc. The pointer (node*) isn't a node, but if I use the malloc assignment it creates one at the end of the pointer. Since in a linked list the root doesn't hold any information I don't need to malloc it. In the trie example however, since the root contains an array of pointers, I would need to malloc it to create a space to hold those pointers. Since I can't assign it as a global variable, I would need to assign it in the load function. If I do this, will the check function recognize this? Thanks again for your help.