How to input different values into a 2D pointer-to-pointer array using a for loop C++

Question

I have created two arrays, friends and timechat. Instead of writing long code that manually puts each piece of data into the 2d array I want to do it with a for loop. I have created a 2D array, 2 columns and 5 rows. One column must have all the names of the friends the other the times. Where am I going wrong?

Code:

string **friendslist;
friendslist = new string*[10];

for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
    friendslist[i] = new string[10];


string friends[5] = {"Bob","Rob","Jim","Hannah","James"};
string timechat[5] = {"12:00", "5:00", "22:00", "18:30", "11:45"};

for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++)
{
    for (int j = 0; j < 2; j++)
    {
        friendslist[j][i] = friends[i];
        cout << friendslist[j][i] << " ";
    }
    cout << endl;
}
cin.get();

Answer 1

I have de-garbled everything and put it in recommended novice style with extra-explicit variable names ... something very important for you at this stage. I have purposefully ignored your timechat so you can master array mechanics and loops first. The suggestions about better leveraging the std:: library with arrays, vectors, and maps are good but should come later. First make sense of this and why/how it's different than yours:

#include <iostream>
#include <string>

using namespace std;

const int NUMBER_OF_LISTS_OF_FRIENDS = 2;
const int NUMBER_OF_FRIENDS_IN_ONE_LIST = 5;

int main(int argc, const char *argv[]) {
  // put your constant data at top
  string friends[NUMBER_OF_FRIENDS_IN_ONE_LIST] = {"Bob","Rob","Jim","Hannah","James"};

  string **friendslist;
  friendslist = new string*[NUMBER_OF_LISTS_OF_FRIENDS]; // Two lists of friends

  // Allocate your storage
  for (int init_list_index = 0; init_list_index < NUMBER_OF_LISTS_OF_FRIENDS; init_list_index++) {
    // each friend list is of length 5
    friendslist[init_list_index] = new string[NUMBER_OF_FRIENDS_IN_ONE_LIST];
  }


  // Initialize the storage with useful contents
  for ( int list_index = 0; list_index < NUMBER_OF_LISTS_OF_FRIENDS; list_index++ ) {
    for (int friend_index = 0; friend_index < NUMBER_OF_FRIENDS_IN_ONE_LIST; friend_index++ ) {
      friendslist[list_index][friend_index] = friends[friend_index];
    }
  }

  // output all the values in a clear format as an initialization check
  for ( int list_index = 0; list_index < NUMBER_OF_LISTS_OF_FRIENDS; list_index++ ) {
    for (int friend_index = 0; friend_index < NUMBER_OF_FRIENDS_IN_ONE_LIST; friend_index++ ) {
      cout << "list " << list_index << ", friend index " << friend_index << ": "
           << friendslist[list_index][friend_index] << "\t";
    }
    cout << endl;
  }
}

Answer 2

Your loop counters don't make a whole lot of sense. For example, you use:

for (int j = 0; j < 1; j++)

This effectively iterates once, with j == 0. Additionally, you have a nested loop:

for (int y = 0; y < 1; y++)

This again iterates once, but you don't even reference y