[ktRolster]

Oh yeah, you're right.

Another thing I've done that will work if you have a lot of strcat(), is make a string struct:

    ktString {
       int len;
       int memlen;
       char *str;
    }

It keeps track of the string's actual length, and the size of the underlying buffer. Then you can 'override' the various string functions:

    bool ktStrcat(ktString s1, ktString s2);
    bool ktSprintf(ktString s1, ...);

These functions will take care of buffer-size checking, and reallocation if necessary. For cases where you need to interface with pre-existing libraries, you can return a cstring(). Make it a function/macro to enable you to change the struct definition in the future:

     #define ktCstr(x) (x)->str

then you can pass it into write() or whatever you need:

    write(sock, ktCstr(s), s->len);

[lomnakkus]

... and end up with silent truncation unless you happen to always remember to use only C library functions with explicit length arguments (and which do not assume NUL-terminated strings).

Look, I get that there is a place for C, but string manipulation is absurdly bad and error-prone.

[ktRolster]

Hi! I can't imagine how you understood what I wrote. I specifically said to not use those C library string functions.

I fully admitted that string manipulation is absurdly bad and error-prone, then built on that by showing a way to make it better. Use ktStrcat() instead of strCat(), then you don't have to worry about truncation. Use ktSprintf() instead of snprintf(), then you don't have to worry about truncation. I wish you had understood.

[lomnakkus]

Yes, I agree. If everyone would just avoid those C stdlib functions everything would be peachy. :)

I was agreeing with you, but just adding caveats. :)

Well, except... some problems surface when interfacing with "things" (libraries, OS'es) written by other people... and there's no escaping those problems, fundamentally. It's C. Of course UTF-8 was invented with the express purpose of being "C-compatible", but... what happens if you have a string with a NUL in it and you pass that to the POSIX (I think?) printf function as an argument for a "%s" format string? Well, it gets truncated. Did you mean for that to happen, or didn't you? Who knows? That's the problem.

Honestly, I'm not trying to win "internet points" or something. It's just that C, as I'm trying to point out, is a bad language for almost everything that's required for a "user-facing" languages these days. Write the thing in C#, Java, O'Caml, Qt[1], or Haskell, or whatever... but please don't think you need to write in a sort of weird approximiation of the old PDP.

[1] Yeah, yeah, not a language, but it's at least an ecosystem that seems to be moderately successful.