linux, stat; problem with segfault

hey everybody,
i'm trying to create a scaled down version of tar for linux os.
I am running into trouble when I am trying to use the stat function to get information about a current file in the directory, so I know if it is a dir, file or link. Everytime I try to use it I get a segfault. here is how I am trying to use it


#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <dirent.h>
int i;
int j;
FILE * wfp;
DIR * current;
struct stat * finfo;
struct dirent * dinfo;
int ctar (char * dir_n, FILE * fp){
     current=opendir(dir_n);
     //to go past . and ..
        for(i=0;i<=1;i++){
          dinfo=readdir(current);
     }//for close
     for(;;){
             if((dinfo=readdir(current))==NULL)break;
             printf("%s ",dinfo->d_name);
          i=stat(dinfo->d_name,finfo);
         }//for close

If I comment out the i=stat(dinfo->d_name,finfo); it works fine and I can get all the files in a dir to print to the screen.  What's the deal?  If anyone can help me get over this syntactical error(don't know if you can say syntactical but hey) It would be wonderfull, this is due tomarrow for me at school.


just a couple things to add:
1.apparently stat needs a const char * which I overlooked so this is why I was getting a segfault.
2. fstat does not require a const char *, but it requires the use of open(man 2) to get a filediscripter, but open(2) requires a const char * ??

How can I get this to work cast to const char * or would that even work. help if you can i really need it