Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Path: utzoo!sq!msb
From: msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader)
Subject: Re: Initializing arrays of char
Message-ID: <1990Oct18.054638.11994@sq.sq.com>
Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, Canada
References: <26860@mimsy.umd.edu> <1017@gistdev.gist.com> <1990Oct16.013349.1023@athena.mit.edu>
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 90 05:46:38 GMT
Lines: 29

> Anyone who wants character arrays initialized with "regular"
> strings should always be using
> 	char a[] = "hello";
>
> Both	char a[6] = "hello";
> and	char a[5] = "hello";
> are risky, and both "open the door for a ton of mistakes to get
> through."  Neither should be used in the normal case, but in the
> abnormal case, when you've taken character counting upon yourself
> for whatever reason and are prepared to live with the
> consequences, either seems appropriate  ...

Agreed.  A particularly tricky case, though, is this one:

	#include "foo.h"

	char bar[BAR_LEN] = "initial bar";

which gives surprising results if you think that strlen("initial bar")
is safely less than BAR_LEN, and it really is equal to it.  However,
this is a fairly rare form of initialization, and I wouldn't give
much weight to the point I just raised.  X3J11 chose rightly, I think.
-- 
Mark Brader		   "I don't care HOW you format   char c; while ((c =
SoftQuad Inc., Toronto	    getchar()) != EOF) putchar(c);   ... this code is a
utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com    bug waiting to happen from the outset." --Doug Gwyn

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