Function pointer as a member of a C struct

My guess is that part of your problem is the parameter lists not matching.

int (* length)();

and

int length(PString * self)

are not the same. It should be int (* length)(PString *);.

...woah, it's Jon!

Edit: and, as mentioned below, your struct pointer is never set to point to anything. The way you're doing it would only work if you were declaring a plain struct, not a pointer.

str = (PString *)malloc(sizeof(PString));

Allocate memory to hold chars.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>

typedef struct PString {
        char *chars;
        int (*length)(PString *self);
} PString;

int length(PString *self) {
    return strlen(self->chars);
}

PString *initializeString(int n) {
    PString *str = malloc(sizeof(PString));

    str->chars = malloc(sizeof(char) * n);
    str->length = length;

    str->chars[0] = '\0'; //add a null terminator in case the string is used before any other initialization.

    return str;
}

int main() {
    PString *p = initializeString(30);
    strcpy(p->chars, "Hello");
    printf("\n%d", p->length(p));
    return 0;
}