• Kimberley Burchett (7/7) Jan 15 2003 The documentation says that strings are not zero-terminated, and so you ...
• Russell Lewis (9/20) Jan 15 2003 When you give a constant string in D (like the format string you
• Walter (3/4) Jan 15 2003 Yes, it is a very good question, and your answer was spot on.

Kimberley Burchett <kimbly at kimbly.com> <Kimberley_member pathlink.com> writes:

The documentation says that strings are not zero-terminated, and so you need to
call append(0) to zero-terminate them before passing them to C functions.  But
then it goes on to give this example:

str.append(0);
printf("the string is '%s'\n", (char *)str);

So what's up with passing the format string directly to printf, without
appending a zero?

Russell Lewis <spamhole-2001-07-16 deming-os.org> writes:

Kimberley Burchett  wrote:
 The documentation says that strings are not zero-terminated, and so you need to
 call append(0) to zero-terminate them before passing them to C functions.  But
 then it goes on to give this example:
 
 str.append(0);
 printf("the string is '%s'\n", (char *)str);
 
 So what's up with passing the format string directly to printf, without
 appending a zero?
 
 

When you give a constant string in D (like the format string you 
mentioned), D allocates a null terminator in the memory, even though the 
array doesn't stretch to include that character.  That is, when 
low-level C routines look at the memory, they will see the null 
terminator, even though it doesn't show up in the .length of any D array.

This is not the case, of course, for any dynamically generated string. 
You have to append to those.

A very perceptive question.  I hope that my answer makes sense.

"Walter" <walter digitalmars.com> writes:

"Russell Lewis" <spamhole-2001-07-16 deming-os.org> wrote in message
news:3E258C2A.9040902 deming-os.org...
 A very perceptive question.  I hope that my answer makes sense.

Yes, it is a very good question, and your answer was spot on.