You are viewing an old version of this page. View the current version.

Compare with Current View Page History

« Previous Version 6 Next »

Strings are a fundamental concept in software engineering, but they are not a built-in type in C.  A string is a contiguous sequence of characters terminated by and including the first null. character. The C programming language supports the following types of strings:  single byte character strings, multibyte character strings, and wide character strings. Single byte and multibyte character strings are both described as null-terminated byte strings.  

Null-terminated byte strings consist of a contiguous sequence of characters terminated by and including the first null character. A pointer to a null-terminated byte string points to its initial character. The length of a string is the number of bytes preceding the null character, and the value of a string is the sequence of the values of the contained characters, in order.

A wide string is a contiguous sequence of wide characters terminated by and including the first null wide character. A pointer to a wide string points to its initial (lowest addressed) wide character. The length of a wide string is the number of wide characters preceding the null wide character and the value of a wide string is the sequence of code values of the contained wide characters, in order.

[Do not attempt to modify string literals]
[Do not assume bounded input]
[Allocated adequate space when copying bounded strings]
[Guarantee that all strings are null-terminated]
[]

  • No labels