Re: Character array initialization

From: Richard Tobin (richard_at_cogsci.ed.ac.uk)
Date: 08/04/04 

Date: 4 Aug 2004 15:29:29 GMT

In article <2ncd60Fuh2hiU1@uni-berlin.de>,
Christian Kandeler <christian.kandeler@hob.de> wrote:

>That's why it is a mistake to write this:
>
>char s[6] = "123456";

It's *often* a mistake.

But try this:

char s[5] = "123456";

I expect your compilers will generate a diagnostic.

What's the difference? There's no requirement in C that arrays of
characters be null-terminated. There are just a bunch of functions
that expect it. It's quite reasonable to initialize an array of 6
characters with 6 non-null characters. On the other hand, it makes no
sense to initialize an array of 5 characters with 6 characters.

-- Richard

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