Re: RFC: add a string-desc module

[Vivien Kraus <vivien@planete-kraus.eu>]

Le vendredi 24 mars 2023 à 19:20 -0400, Jeffrey Walton a écrit :
>  The type that I'm proposing does not have NUL byte appended to the
> data
> > always and automatically, because I think it is more important to
> > have a
> > string_desc_substring function that does not cause memory
> > allocation,
> > than to have string_desc_c function (conversion to 'char *') that
> > does
> > not cause memory allocation.
> 
> I would take caution if not including a NULL. A natural thing to want
> to do is print a string, and C-based routines usually expect a
> terminating NULL.
> 
> Also, if you initialize the struct, then the allocated string will
> likely include a terminating NULL. I understand the size member will
> omit the NULL, but it will be present anyways in the string. (Unless
> you do something ugly, like spell out the characters of the string).

From what I understand, the proposed substring function cannot add a
NUL byte without doing a copy first.

Vivien