Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!ukma!husc6!cmcl2!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: strings
Message-ID: <10255@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: 14 May 89 00:37:27 GMT
References: <2846@tank.uchicago.edu> <5785@cbnews.ATT.COM> <10087@smoke.BRL.MIL> <1415@uw-entropy.ms.washington.edu> <17333@mimsy.UUCP> <10228@socslgw.csl.sony.JUNET> <10237@smoke.BRL.MIL> <10235@socslgw.csl.sony.JUNET> <1989May11.155935.22324@utzoo.uucp> <10245@socs
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 12

In article <10245@socslgw.csl.sony.JUNET> diamond@csl.sony.junet (Norman Diamond) writes:
>It [null-terminated strings] seems intrinsically worse to me.

I thought it was well known that each method (associated count vs.
terminator) has advantages in some contexts and disadvantages in
others.  Many interesting operations on strings are faster with null
terminator values than when an associated count must be tested.  The
main drawback to terminated strings is that the terminator value
cannot be contained within the string.

If you want counted strings, C makes it relatively easy to provide
them for yourself.