Re: How is perl able to handle the null byte?

To say that "C treats a null byte as the end of a string" is a bit unfair. C barely knows what a "string" is. A large amount of C code, including a great number of standard library functions, work with null-terminated strings. But that doesn't mean you can't write code that treats your own data however you like. Nothing is forcing you to stop at a null; there's just a certain class of pre-written functions that do so by convention. If you know better (because, for example, your string is stored together with its length), then that's fine and well. C only cares about bits and bytes.

Comment on Re: How is perl able to handle the null byte?

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Re^2: How is perl able to handle the null byte? by Joost (Canon) on Jun 15, 2006 at 21:07 UTC
Quite true. Strictly speaking, C doesn't have a string type: what's conventionally used instead is a pointer to a (single) character which is equivalent to an array of characters because of the way C arrays work 1]. The "string type" in C is literally "char ". 1] C arrays do not really have a length either, defining an array with a certain length only reserves that amount of memory, the length isn't stored anywhere. "What should it profit a man, if he should win a flame war, yet lose his cool?"*	[reply]
Re^3: How is perl able to handle the null byte? by ChemBoy (Priest) on Jun 15, 2006 at 21:50 UTC
Reminding me of a classic exchange from a CS class I took once (OK, the CS class I took...): Student (slightly paraphrased): you mentioned that the address after the last member of the array is guaranteed to be a legal address, though you don't technically have it allocated to you. Don't a lot of people use that fact to just pretend their array indexes are 1-based instead of 0-based? Professor: Lot's of people J-walk, too! Some of them get killed! Ah, those were the days... ;-) If God had meant us to fly, he would never have given us the railroads. --Michael Flanders	[reply]