Error in assigning a value to an element in an array of struct

I get this error in visual studio when running the code: Unhandled exception at 0x0028457b in fileIO_experiment.exe: 0xC0000005: Access violation reading location 0x00000018

I am trying to allocate an array of structs inside one of my functions. The pointer to this array is declared in main, but passed on and used inside a function called getRow. The problem occurs when I try to assign a value to an element in the array of structs.

Here is my code :

In the main function:

int main()
{
.
.
.
DataRow* dataRowPointer = 0;
dataRowIndex = 0;

while ( myfile.good() )
{
        getRow( myfile, &loc, tcsPointer, dataRowPointer );
        globalLineCounter++;        
}
.
.

In the function getRow :

void getRow( std::istream& myfile, HeaderLocations* loc, TestCaseSet* tcsPointer, DataRow* dataRowPointer )
{
    std::string line;
    std::string word;    
    int currentLoc = 0;
    bool startStop = true;

    std::getline( myfile, line);        
    std::stringstream sline(line);

    while ( sline >> word )
    {
        if( word == "start" )
        {   
            dataRowIndex = -1;
            dataRowPointer = new DataRow[MAX_NUMBER_DATA_ROWS_PER_TEST_CASE_SET];              //Declaration of array of DataRow structs
            initializeDataRowPointer( dataRowPointer );          // Setting all values of previous array to default values

            testCaseSetID = captureTestCaseSetNumber( line, tcsPointer );
            getHeaderRow( myfile, loc );

            startStop = true;
            break;
        }
        else if ( word == "stop" )
        {   tcsNumber++;

            dataRowPointer = 0;
            startStop = true;
            break;
        }
        else
        {   startStop = false;  }
    }

    if( !startStop )
    {   dataRowIndex++;
        dataRowPointer[dataRowIndex].tcSetNum = testCaseSetID;      // <-- PROBLEM OCCCURS HERE
        getDataRow( line, loc, tcsPointer, dataRowPointer );    }
}

dataRowIndex is a global variable. This is only temporary until I fix this code. I apologize in advance if my code is more C than C++, I am still a newbie.

Help would be much appreciated. Thank You!

This is a very fragile piece of code. If you have move than one "start", you leak and throw away memory. You hit stop after start, you leak your pointer - heck you always leak your pointer. You need to rethink how your create your memory for sure.

Your pointer is 0'd in stop, but you set a sentinel to catch that so it might be okay.

Here's the probable issue: If all the words coming in are neither stop nor start (or your compares to strings don't work correctly) and while(sline >> word) eventually returns false as it is out of data or something, you never allocate memory and then attempt to read from it in your !startStop if statement. This will cause a NULL exception.