Null-terminated string: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 06:46, 6 March 2020

Revision as of 06:11, 7 April 2020

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{{see also|String (computer science)#Null-terminated}}

In [[computer programming]], a '''null-terminated string''' is a [[character string]] stored as an [[Array data structure|array]] containing the characterscharactersss and terminated with a [[null character]] (<code>'\0'</code>, called NUL in [[ASCII]]). Alternative names are '''[[C string]]''', which refers to the [[C (programming language)|C programming language]] and '''ASCIIZ''' (although C can use encodings other than ASCII).

The length of a C string is found by searching for the (first) NUL byte. This can be slow as it takes O(''n'') ([[linear time]]) with respect to the string length. It also means that a string cannot contain a NUL character (there is a NUL in memory, but it is after the last character, not "in" the string).