Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by jussij 1466 days ago
The "" will define a null terminated char array to represent the string. But as it string contains no text it's a char array that only requires one byte (i.e. it contains nothing but the null termination character).

Now the first character of that char array is found here: ""[0]

The second character is found here: ""[1]

So the address of the second character is found here: &""[1]

But as the string was represented by one byte char array that second address is past the end of the string.

So it's actually an undefined address.

1 comments

Nit: one past end of an array is actually fine as an address.
Not always. Consider this 'test.cpp' example:

    #include <stdio.h>
    #include <string.h>
    
    struct a_struct {
      char a[1];
      char b[2];
    
      a_struct() {
         strcpy(a, "");
         strcpy(b, "b");
      }
    } x;
    
    int main() {
       printf("before:\n");
       printf("a : '%s'\n", x.a);
       printf("b : '%s'\n", x.b);
    
       char *c = &1[x.a];
       *c = 'c';
    
       printf("after:\n");
       printf("a : '%s'\n", x.a);
       printf("b : '%s'\n", x.b);   //b is now corrupt
    }
Compile and running this code:

    C:\temp>g++ test.cpp
    C:\temp>a.exe
    before:
    a : ''
    b : 'b'
    after:
    a : ''
    b : 'c'
Yes, dereferencing past the end is not fine, but the address itself is.