Can't understand how to initialize double pointers for SkipList

0

I need to create a skiplist data structure, a 2D matrix of doubly linked lists. My professor wants us to have the head of each row to be INT_MIN and the tail of each row to be INT_MAX, being pointed to by double pointers named frontGuards and rearGuards. I'm getting an error with my current code Exception 0xc0000005 encountered at address 0xf71c3d: Access violation writing location 0xcccccccc which I'm assuming means something is wrong with how I have my pointers set up but I can't figure out why. My program can't get past the constructor, and so far I've tried debugging to look at this and it's saying that this = {SkipList *const | 0x005efddc} 0x005efddc which also looks like a problem. here is my constructor in the .cpp file and my .h file

constructor:

SkipList::SkipList() // default constructor that sets front and rear guards
{
    frontGuards[0]->data = INT_MIN;
    rearGuards[0]-> data = INT_MAX;
    frontGuards[0]->next = rearGuards[0];
    rearGuards[0]->previous = frontGuards[0];
    frontGuards[0]->previous = nullptr;
    rearGuards[0]->next = nullptr;
}

.h file:

class SkipList
{

    private:
        class SNode
        {
        public:
            // SNode stores int as data
            explicit SNode(int data);
            // data for SNode
            int data;
            // link to next SNode
            SNode *next;
            // link to prev SNode
            SNode *previous;
            // link to up one level
            SNode *upLevel;
            // link to down one level
            SNode *downLevel;


        };
        SNode **frontGuards;
        SNode **rearGuards;

    public:
        void addBefore(SNode *newNode, SNode *nextNode);
        SkipList();
        virtual ~SkipList();
        bool Add(int data);
        friend ostream &operator<<(ostream &os, const SkipList &list);

};

Currently I am only trying to get all the functions of the class working with a single doubly linked list before I move on to the matrix. I'm sorry if this is something simple to figure out I'm still very naive but I can't get help from my school's tutoring center because of my job and no school because of holiday. I've never used double pointers and I don't understand why I need to use them or the front/rear guards for a skiplist or what is going on with my code. I apologize for anything that seems mundane or redundant. What does it mean that the pointer isn't initialized? Especially if I'm trying to have it point at data with frontGuards[0]->data = INT_MIN

UPDATE: I tried initializing the pointers to nullptr in the header file but that didn't help, still produces the same error

c++
pointers
constructor
skip-lists
asked on Stack Overflow Nov 10, 2019 by (unknown user) • edited Nov 10, 2019 by (unknown user)

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