<string> class with support of Null-Bytes?

[Karl Ebener]

Hi!

I asked a similar question before but then changed everything to using
char-Arrays instead of the string class, but I would rather not do this
again.

So, does anyone know of a string-Class similar to the STL-<string> that
supports null-bytes?

I tried with standard <string> but this definitely does not support
them... :(

Tnx
Karl

[Alf P. Steinbach]

* Karl Ebener:

I asked a similar question before but then changed everything to using
char-Arrays instead of the string class, but I would rather not do this
again.

So, does anyone know of a string-Class similar to the STL-<string> that
supports null-bytes?

I tried with standard <string> but this definitely does not support
them... :(

Depends what you mean by "support", but with usual definitions that's
not correct.

Perhaps post a simple program that shows what you mean by "not support"?

Then we can see whether the problem is in the code or with std::string,
and give better suggestions on how to proceeed.

--
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is it such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?

[Karl Ebener]

Little change:

I tried with standard <string> but this definitely does not support
them... :(

-> I tried using length()-method which stops at null-bytes and c_str()
of course extracts only part till null-byte.
Have I only not seen any possibility to extract the content as char* ?

Tnx
Karl

[Alf P. Steinbach]

* Karl Ebener:

Little change:

I tried with standard <string> but this definitely does not support
them... :(
-> I tried using length()-method which stops at null-bytes

It doesn't.

and c_str() of course extracts only part till null-byte.
It doesn't, see §21.3.6/1.

Have I only not seen any possibility to extract the content as char* ?

Post some code.

--
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is it such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?

[Karl Ebener]

Alf P. Steinbach schrieb:

Depends what you mean by "support", but with usual definitions that's
not correct.

Perhaps post a simple program that shows what you mean by "not support"?

Then we can see whether the problem is in the code or with std::string,
and give better suggestions on how to proceeed.

Okay, this is my test program.
What I want to do finally, is read a complete (binary) file into a
string and then send this via using socket to/from server.
I am using socket-routines that use strings because it is much easier
this way and I would love to leave it at that and not recode everything...

Tnx
Karl

#include <string>
#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

int main()
{
string abc = "abc\0abc\0 "; // string contains Null-bytes
cout << abc << ":" << abc.length() << endl; // output is: 3
FILE* fp;

fp = fopen("ABC", "w");
fwrite(abc.c_st r(), 8, 1, fp); // file will contain: "abc" and Garbage
fclose(fp);
}

[Rolf Magnus]

Karl Ebener wrote:

Alf P. Steinbach schrieb:

Depends what you mean by "support", but with usual definitions that's
not correct.

Perhaps post a simple program that shows what you mean by "not support"?

Then we can see whether the problem is in the code or with std::string,
and give better suggestions on how to proceeed.
Okay, this is my test program.
What I want to do finally, is read a complete (binary) file into a
string and then send this via using socket to/from server.
I am using socket-routines that use strings because it is much easier
this way and I would love to leave it at that and not recode everything...

Tnx
Karl

#include <string>
#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

int main()
{
string abc = "abc\0abc\0 "; // string contains Null-bytes

No. Your literal contains 0-bytes. The conversion constructor from C style
strings to std::string of course has to stop at \0, since that's the value
that marks the end of a C style string. Try:

const char c[] = "abc\0abc\0 ";

string abc(c, sizeof(c));

This tells the constructor to not stop at \0, but read the specified number
of characters.
cout << abc << ":" << abc.length() << endl; // output is: 3
That's because only the first 3 characters were actually copied into the
string.
FILE* fp;

fp = fopen("ABC", "w");
fwrite(abc.c_st r(), 8, 1, fp); // file will contain: "abc" and Garbage
Again, that's because the string only contains the first 3 characters.
fclose(fp);
}

[Alf P. Steinbach]

* Karl Ebener:

#include <string>
#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

int main()
{
string abc = "abc\0abc\0 "; // string contains Null-bytes
cout << abc << ":" << abc.length() << endl; // output is: 3
FILE* fp;

fp = fopen("ABC", "w");
fwrite(abc.c_st r(), 8, 1, fp); // file will contain: "abc" and Garbage
fclose(fp);
}

The problem in the abc declaration is that you invoke the constructor
that takes a C string as argument, and by definition that C string ends
at the first nullbyte.

Try
#include <string>
#include <iostream>

#define ELEMCOUNT( array ) (sizeof(array)/sizeof(*array))

int main()
{
static char const abc_data[] = "abc\0abc\0 ";
std::string abc( abc_data, ELEMCOUNT( abc_data );

std::cout << abc << ":" << abc.length() << std::endl;
}

But you might instead (for efficiency) want to use std::vector<cha r>.

Also, the file should be opened in binary mode.

--
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is it such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?

[Dimitris Kamenopoulos]

Karl Ebener wrote:

Okay, this is my test program.

My guess is that std::string's functions (including constructors) that take
a C-Style string as an argument, *do* treat it as a C-style (i.e.
null-terminated) string.

Makes sense, doesn't it? You don't want

char s[15] = "sth";
string s1(s);

to allocate 11 extra null characters in s1 for no reason :-)

If, OTOH, you put a '\0' in an std::string, it will not be treated as a
terminating character.

Check out this example to see what I mean:

#include <iostream>
#include <string>

int main(){
std::string s("abc\0abc\0") ;
std::cout<<s.le ngth()<<std::en dl; //prints 3, not 9
std::string s2;
s2.push_back('a ');
s2.push_back('\ 0');
s2.push_back('b ');
std::cout<<s2.l ength()<<std::e ndl; //prints 3, not 1
}
Note: c_string() will return a const char *, which means that the string
returned will always stop at the first null byte, for any code that cares
about it (e.g. strlen or strcpy). Better use a vector<char> if you want
byte semantics.

[Dave O'Hearn]

Karl Ebener wrote:

fwrite(abc.c_st r(), 8, 1, fp); // file will contain: "abc"
// and Garbage

As a separate issue, data() would be better than c_str() here. c_str()
may expand the string's internal buffer, to make room for an extra null
character past the end. You don't need a null-terminated C-string to
call fwrite, so you can just use data().

--
Dave O'Hearn

[Rolf Magnus]

Dimitris Kamenopoulos wrote:

Karl Ebener wrote:

Okay, this is my test program.

My guess is that std::string's functions (including constructors) that
take a C-Style string as an argument, *do* treat it as a C-style (i.e.
null-terminated) string.

Makes sense, doesn't it? You don't want

char s[15] = "sth";
string s1(s);

to allocate 11 extra null characters in s1 for no reason :-)

That's not the main point. The constructor takes a pointer, which doesn't
contain any information about the size of the array pointed to. So the \0
is the _only_ way at all to know where a C style string ends.