Using '\0' as a comparison operand

Question

My function should list all the elements of the char array on the screen. But it should stop if the array is finished. The size of the arrays are variable. I thought that the array is terminated by '\0'. So I did this:

for(int i=0; i< size; i++){
    if(word[i] != '\0')
        cout<< word[i];
}

But the program doesn't stop there. It creates some random symbol.

E.g. char number[]= "0123"
The program gives: 0123§&

What is wrong with my if-condition?

If this is truly C++ then use of `std::string` is strongly advised. You're walking off the end of the array here if you get garbage like that. — tadman, Dec 11 '17 at 18:31
I'm just leaving this link here. https://stackoverflow.com/a/10943040/5132337 — Siraj Alam, Dec 11 '17 at 18:33
Using the [debugger](http://idownvotedbecau.se/nodebugging/) would have quickly unfolded what the problem is. — user0042, Dec 11 '17 at 18:35

Arun A S · Accepted Answer · 2017-12-11T18:43:11.133

5

The problem is that your code won't stop when it encounters '\0', it just doesnt print the '\0' and continues on.

Try changing your for loop condition

for(int i=0; word[i] != '\0'; i++){
    cout<< word[i];
}

And if you just want to just print it, a simple

cout<<word;

would have sufficed

edited Dec 11 '17 at 18:43

answered Dec 11 '17 at 18:39

Arun A S

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Nice use of loop limits instead of an `if` statement. – Matt Dec 11 '17 at 18:42
@lucau glad that it helped. If you are learning c++ then do look into `std::string` as suggested by the others, it will be much more useful than character arrays – Arun A S Dec 11 '17 at 18:49

Using '\0' as a comparison operand

1 Answers1