Weird symbols in copied/truncated character array - c++

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
void truncate(char* s1, char* s2, int n) {
for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
s2[i] = s1[i];
}
}
int main() {
char s1[15] = "Hello World";
char s2[10];
int n{ 5 };
truncate(s1, s2, n);
cout << s2; // this should display: Hello
}
When I run this in Visual Studio, I get this output:
Hello╠╠╠╠╠╠╠╠╠╠╠╠╠╠╠Hello World
But when I run it using an online compiler (Online GDB), the output is normal:
Hello
I know it has to do with the \0 terminator but I just can't figure it out.

Your truncate function doesn't add the required nul terminator character to the destination (s2) string. Thus, when you call cout in main, that will keep printing characters until it finds its expected nul (zero) character at some unspecified location following the garbage-initialized data that pre-exists in the parts of the s2 local array that weren't explicitly set by your function. (This is undefined behaviour, and almost anything could actually be displayed; the program may also crash, if the cout call tries to read memory it doesn't have the required access to).
To correct this, simply add that nul (zero, or '\0') character to the end of the string in the truncate function. Assuming you don't go beyond the array's bounds, you can use the "left over" value of the loop index, i, to access the required element; but, to do so, you will need to declare the int i outside of the for loop's scope:
void truncate(char* s1, char* s2, int n)
{
int i; // Must be declared outside the FOR loop ...
for (i = 0; i < n; i++) {
s2[i] = s1[i];
}
s2[i] = '\0'; // ... so we can use it here.
}
Note: Another way (but apparently prohibited by your teacher) would be to set all elements of the s2 array in main to zero, before calling your truncate function:
char s2[10] = ""; // Set ALL elements to zero
Some compilers (seemingly including the online one you use) will "implicitly" set the elements of uninitialized local arrays to zero; but never rely on this: it is not part of the C++ Standard and compilers are not required to enforce such behaviour.

Related

After calling strcpy, the second char array becomes empty

Here is the function prototype in my program:
void FindRepStr(char str[], const char findStr[], const char replaceStr[]);
It find the findStr[] in str[] and replace it with replaceStr[].
Here is my code:
void FindRepStr(char str[], const char findStr[], const char replaceStr[])
{
char *s = nullptr;
s = strstr(str,findStr); //s points to the first-time appear in str
char tmp[] ="";
//length equal
if(strlen(findStr)==strlen(replaceStr))
{
for(int i=0;i<strlen(findStr);i++)
{
if(replaceStr[i]=='\0' || s[i] =='\0')
break;
else
s[i] = replaceStr[i];
}
cout<<str<<endl;
}
else
{
//find shorter than replace
if(strlen(findStr)<strlen(replaceStr))
{
//!!!problem here!!!
strncpy(tmp,s,strlen(s)+1); // store the left part
for(int i=0;i<=strlen(replaceStr);i++)
{
if(replaceStr[i]=='\0') //if end of replace
{
s[i]='\0'; //make s(str) end here
break;
}
else
s[i] = replaceStr[i]; //if not end, give the value
}
}
//finder longer than replace
else
{
//...not finished yet
}
}
}
I haven't finished this but here after strncpy, I printed s and tmp for test and I found tmp is correctly copied, but s print out empty:
cout<<"s before strncpy:"<<s<<endl;
strncpy(tmp,s,strlen(s)+1);
cout<<"tmp after strncpy:"<<tmp<<endl;
cout<<"s after strncpy:"<<s<<endl;
The output:
But in simple test program I write, I found it won't be emptied:
#include<iostream>
#include<cstring>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
char a[]="abc";
char b[]="defgh";
cout<<"a before:"<<a<<endl;
cout<<"b before:"<<b<<endl;
strncpy(a,b,strlen(b)+1);
cout<<"a after:"<<a<<endl;
cout<<"b after:"<<b<<endl;
return 0;
}
The output:
What went wrong in my program?
char tmp[] ="";
Here you are creating a character array with enough space to hold the string literal, including the terminating nul. Since the string literal is empty, this character array holds exactly one character.
If you write more than that (and you do), you enter the realm of undefined behavior. Basically you are dumping your strings all over random places in the stack; predictably, this doesn't end well.
You need to ensure your character array has enough space to do what you want.
Also, your program logic looks entirely broken. I don't see how that code is supposed to do what the function name suggests it should.
char tmp[] ="";
This declares a local array of one char (it just contains the '\x0' terminator).
Copying more than one character into this array causes undefined behaviour: in this case it's destroying the stack frame storing your local variables.
If you want a pointer, declare char *tmp. Better yet, just use std::string for all of this.

Why can't I call my function recursively?

I'm trying to compile this code in order to reverse a string:
void reverse(char *str, int n)
{
if (n==0 || n==1) {
return; //acts as quit
} else {
char i = str[0]; //1st position of string
char j = str[n-1]; //Last position of string
char temp = str[i];
str[i] = str[j]; //Swap
str[j] = temp;
reverse(str[i+1],n-1); // <-- this line
}
}
#include <iostream>
int main()
{
char *word = "hello";
int n = sizeof word;
reverse(word, n);
std::cout << word << std::endl;
return 0;
}
The compiler reports an error where I call reverse() recursively:
invalid conversion from char to char* at reverse(str[i+1], n-1).
Why?
Any advice on other issues in my code is also welcome.
str[i+1] is a character, not a pointer to a character; hence the error message.
When you enter the function, str points to the character you're going to swap with the n:th character away from str.
What you need to do in the recursion is to increment the pointer so it points to the next character.
You also need to decrease n by two, because it should be a distance from str + 1, not from str.
(This is easy to get wrong; see the edit history of this answer for an example.)
You're also using the characters in the strings as indexes into the strings when swapping.
(If you had the input "ab", you would do char temp = str['a']; str['a'] = str['b']; str['b'] = temp;. This is obviously not correct.)
str[0] is not the position of the first character, it is the first character.
Use std::swap if you're allowed to, otherwise see below.
More issues: you shouldn't use sizeof word, as that is either 4 or 8 depending your target architecture - it's equivalent to sizeof(char*).
You should use strlen to find out how long a string is.
Further, you should get a warning for
char *word = "hello";
as that particular conversion is dangerous - "hello" is a const array and modifying it is undefined.
(It would be safe if you never modified the array, but you are, so it isn't.)
Copy it into a non-const array instead:
char word[] = "hello";
and increase the warning level of your compiler.
Here's a fixed version:
void reverse(char *str, int n)
{
if(n <= 1) // Play it safe even with negative n
{
return;
}
else
{
// You could replace this with std::swap(str[0], str[n-1])
char temp = str[0]; //1st character in the string
str[0] = str[n-1]; //Swap
str[n-1] = temp;
// n - 2 is one step closer to str + 1 than n is to str.
reverse(str + 1, n - 2);
}
}
int main()
{
char word[] = "hello";
// sizeof would actually work here, but it's fragile so I prefer strlen.
reverse(word, strlen(word));
std::cout << word << std::endl;
}
I'm going to dissect your code, as if you'd posted over on Code Review. You did ask for other observations, after all...
Firstly,
char *word = "hello";
Your compiler should warn you that pointing a char* at a literal string is undefined behaviour (if not, make sure that you have actually enabled a good set of warnings. Many compilers emit very few warnings by default, for historical reasons). You need to ensure that you have a writable string; for that you can use a char[]:
char word[] = "hello";
The next line
int n = sizeof word;
has now changed meaning, but is still wrong. In your original code, it was the size of a pointer to char, which is unlikely to be the same as the length of the word "hello". With the change to char[], it's now the size of an array of 6 characters, i.e. 6. The sixth character is the NUL that ends the string literal. Instead of the sizeof operator, you probably want to use the strlen() function.
Moving on to reverse():
You read characters from positions in the string, and then use those characters to index it. That's not what you want, and GCC warns against indexing using plain char as it may be signed or unsigned. You just want to index in one place, and your i and j are unnecessary.
Finally, the question you asked. str[i+1] is the character at position i+1, but your function wants a pointer to character, which is simply str+i+1. Or, since we worked out we don't want i in there, just str+1.
Note also that you'll need to subtract 2 from n, not 1, as it will be used as a count of characters from str+1. If you only subtract 1, you'll always be swapping with the last character, and you'll achieve a 'roll' rather than a 'reverse'.
Here's a working version:
void reverse(char *str, int n)
{
if (n < 2)
// end of recursion
return; //acts as quit
char temp = str[0];
str[0] = str[n-1]; //Swap
str[n-1] = temp;
reverse(str+1,n-2);
}
#include <iostream>
#include <cstring>
int main()
{
char word[] = "hello";
int n = std::strlen(word);
reverse(word, n);
std::cout << word << std::endl;
}
We can make further changes. For example, we could use std::swap to express the switching more clearly. And we could pass a pair of pointers instead of a pointer and a length:
#include <utility> // assuming C++11 - else <algorithm>
void reverse(char *str, char *end)
{
if (end <= str)
// end of recursion
return;
std::swap(*str, *end);
reverse(str+1, end-1);
}
and invoke it with reverse(word, word+n-1).
Finally (as I'm not going to mention std::reverse()), here's the idiomatic iterative version:
void reverse(char *str, char *end)
{
while (str < end)
std::swap(*str++, *end--);
}
use like this :
reverse(&str[i+1],n-1);
pass address of the (i+1)th position not value.

Delete repeated characters from a random word

I'm making a class to delete repeated character from a random word. For example if the input is "aabbccddeeff", it should output "abcdef". However my output contains strange characters after "abcdef". The main.cpp file already exists as the requirements for creating the class. Please see the following codes:
main.ccp
#include <iostream>
#include "repeatdeletion.h"
using namespace std;
int main()
{
char* noRepeats;
int length;
string s;
cout<<"Enter a random word with repeating characters: ";
cin>>s;
RepeatDeletion d;
length=s.length();
noRepeats=d.deleteRepeats(s, length);
cout<<"Your word without any repeating characters: ";
for (int k=0; k<length; k++){
cout<<noRepeats[k];
}
cout<<endl;
delete [] noRepeats;
noRepeats=NULL;
return 0;
}
repeatdeletion.h
#ifndef REPEATDELETION_H
#define REPEATDELETION_H
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
class RepeatDeletion
{
char* c;
char arr[128]={};
bool repeated;
bool isRepeated(char);
public:
RepeatDeletion();
~RepeatDeletion();
char* deleteRepeats(string, int);
};
#endif // REPEATDELETION_H
repeatdeletion.cpp
#include "repeatdeletion.h"
RepeatDeletion::RepeatDeletion()
{
repeated=false;
}
RepeatDeletion::~RepeatDeletion()
{
delete [] c;
c=NULL;
}
bool RepeatDeletion::isRepeated(char c){
bool repeated=false;
if (arr[c]>=1){
repeated=true;
arr[c]++;
}else{
arr[c]++;
}
return repeated;
}
char* RepeatDeletion::deleteRepeats(string str, int len){
c=new char[len];
int j=0;
for (int i=0; i<len; i++){
if (isRepeated(str[i])==false){
c[j]=str[i];
j++;
}
}
return c;
}
Your return character array is not null terminated.
The length function of string does not include \0.
You have two choices
Add null at the end of returned character array, and std::cout the char array directly (instead of char by char)
Output the final length of your char array, and use that as range to print it char by char
Your printing loop loops using the old and unmodified string length. That means you will go outside the characters you added to memory returned by deleteRepeats.
The easiest solution to handle this is to terminate the data as a proper string, and check for the terminator in the loop.
If you want to use a C-string array, they have a null terminator at the end. That means you'll want to (in deleteRepeats) define your character array one character larger than the length:
c=new char[len+1];
And, after the for loop, ensure you put that null terminator in:
c[j] = '\0';
Then, in your calling function, you can just do:
cout << noRepeats;
Even if you don't want to use C strings, you'll need to communicate the new length back to the caller somehow (currently, you're using the original length). The easiest way to do that is (IMNSHO) still using a C-style string and using strlen to get the new length (a).
Otherwise, you're going to need something like a reference parameter for the new length, populated by the function and used by the caller.
(a) But I'd suggest rethinking the way you do things. If you want to be a C++ coder, be a C++ coder. In other words, use std::string for strings since it avoids the vast majority of problems people seem to have with C strings.
That's because in your code you write the following:
cout<<"Your word without any repeating characters: ";
for (int k=0; k<length; k++){
cout<<noRepeats[k];
}
cout<<endl;
Here, length refers to the length of the original string (which you, by the way shouldn't pass to your deleteRepeats method). I would suggest you make deleteRepeats return a string and write something like this:
std::string noRepeats = d.deleteRepeats(s);
std::cout << "Your word without any repeating characters: ";
std::cout << noRepeats << std::endl;
C-style string (char *, if you insist) follow the convention that the last character is '\0', indicating that the string ends. You could also change deleteRepeats by appending '\0', i.e.
char* RepeatDeletion::deleteRepeats(string str){
c = new char[str.size() + 1];
int j = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < str.size(); i++){
if(isRepeated(str[i]) == false){
c[j] = str[i];
j++;
}
}
c[j] = '\0';
return c;
}
and in your main
std::cout << noRepeats << std::endl;
instead of the for loop. But really, you should use std::string, and if possible not mix it with char *. Hope that helps.
for(k=0;k<length;k++)
Here length should be the exact length of noRepeats, but not of s
so :
char* RepeatDeletion::deleteRepeats(string str, int len)
should return the length-after too
use std::unique it does what you want:
std::string s{};
std::cin>>s;
auto it = std::unique(std::begin(s), std::end(s));
s.resize(std::distance(std::begin(s),it));
std::cout << s;
the way it works is to go through the range begin to end and move all the remaining elements forward if the current element is equal to the next. It returns the position of the end of the new string (it in this example) but does not actually shorten the string so on the next line we shorten the string to the length equal to the distance of begin() to it.
see live at http://ideone.com/0CeaHW

C++ pointer function causes empty parameter

I'm making a virtual machine in C++. I have loaded in the contents of a file as a string. I pass this string to a function of type int*, but the problem is the string variable containing the contents of the file seems to be empty because when I try to use cout << file << endl; I get nothing.
Here is the file in question:
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <fstream>
#include <sstream>
using namespace std;
class reedoovm {
private:
string filedata;
string instruction;
string file;
int instr;
int instructionCount;
int instructionPointer;
public:
int load_program(string filename) {
ifstream rdfile(filename);
while(rdfile >> instruction) { /* Get each instruction */
filedata += instruction; /* Append the instruction to filedata */
filedata += ","; /* Append a comma to separate each instruction */
instructionCount++;
}
rdfile.close(); /* Close the file */
return instructionCount; /* Return the filedata */
}
int *instrToArr(string file) {
//file = "02,0022,00E1,0022,00,04,73";
cout << file << endl;
stringstream hextoint;
unsigned int value;
string s = file; /* store fconv in a variable "s" */
string delimiter = ","; /* The delimiter */
size_t pos = 0;
string token;
int i = 0;
int inst;
static int* instarray;
instarray = (int*) calloc(instructionCount,sizeof(int));
while ((pos = s.find(delimiter)) != string::npos) { /* Convert hex instructions to decimal */
token = s.substr(0, pos);
stringstream hextoint(token);
hextoint >> hex >> value;
if (i < instructionCount) {
instarray[i] = value;
cout << instarray[i] << endl;
i++;
}
s.erase(0, pos + delimiter.length());
}
return instarray;
}
int getNextIntruction(string s) {
int *instruction = instrToArr(s);
cout << *instruction << endl;
return 0;
}
void run_program(string s) {
int loop = 1;
while (loop) {
instr = getNextIntruction(s);
loop = 0;
}
}
void execute_program(string s) {
file = load_program(s);
int * arr = instrToArr(file);
//cout << arr << endl;
//run_program(s);
}
};
int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {
reedoovm rd;
rd.execute_program(argv[1]);
return 0;
}
The function causing the problem is int *instrToArr(string file) {. I don't know why all of a sudden the file variable is empty.
Your code has many issues, but the one that is bugging you is probably
file = loadProgram(s);
because loadProgram has been defined as returning an integer (the number of instructions) and not a string, but you're assigning it to a string.
For what I'd call a design bug of C++ assigning an integer to a string is a perfectly legal instruction and means that the string will have one character with the value of the integer.
Officially the reason for accepting assignment from an integers is that it was thought that it could be useful to write
str += chr; // Adds the char at the end
where str is a string and chr a char. By extension if += was legal then it was thought that also assignment should be legal too (a logical jump I don't agree with in this specific case).
chars however in C++ are numbers and integers (or even doubles) can be converted implicitly to a char without any warning or any error. So it's for example also legal:
std::string s;
s = 3.141592654;
Other issues I can see in your code are:
1. instructionCount is not initialized
In C++ you must always initialize native type members (e.g. integers, doubles) in class instances in the constructor. The default constructor won't do it for you. The result is that when allocating the class instance those members will have random values and you don't want that. Official explanation for this rule is that initializing members that won't be access may penalize performance, if the programmer wants to pay for initialization then it has to write the initialization.
2. instrToArr returns a pointer to a local static variable
That variable that is however allocated each time the function is called thus leaking memory at each call if the caller doesn't take care of deallocation.
Note that in C++ writing:
static int * instarray = (int *)calloc(...);
is not the same as writing:
static int * instarray;
instarray = (int *)calloc(...);
because in the first case the allocation is done only once (the first time the code reaches that instruction) while in the second case the allocation is done every time.
3. You are using calloc
Your code is allocation a variable-sized array using calloc and this, while not a bad idea in absolute, requires very careful handling to avoid leaks or other errors (for example memory allocated with calloc must be freed with free and not with delete[] but the compiler cannot help the programmer remembering what was allocated with one or with the other method (new[]).
MUCH better unless there are very specific reasons to play with naked pointers and implicit sizes is to use std::vector for variable-sized arrays.
4. You seem to want hex -> int conversion
... but your code does nothing to do it. Unfortunately input parsing is a sad story in C++ and I, as one, prefer to use old c <stdio.h> functions for input and especially for output (where formatting in C++ is just too painful).
5. your getNextInstruction always returns 0
Nothing remains of the processing of instrToArr and also the array returned is just dropped on the floor after sending the address on output.
This means just leaking memory at every iteration.
6. your run_program just loops once
... thus at least the naming is confusing (there are no real loops).
7. your program doesn't do any kind of checking in main
If someone calls the program passing no arguments (a quite common case) then something bad is going to happen.
I think in load_program() instead of:
return instructionCount;
you meant:
return filedata;
And change the return type of load_program() to string
I suppose you have a typo
int * arr = instrToArr(file)
instead of
int * arr = instrToArr(filedata)

Grabbing a portion of a string like substr

So I'm making a function that is similar to SubStr. This is an assignment so I cannot use the actual function to do this. So far I have created a function to take a string and then get the desired substring. My problem is returning the substring. In the function when I do Substring[b] = AString[b]; the substring is empty, but if I cout from inside the function I get the desired substring. So what is wrong with my code?
Here is a working demo: http://ideone.com/4f5IpA
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
void subsec(char AString[], char Substring[], int start, int length);
int main() {
char someString[] = "abcdefg";
char someSubString[] = "";
subsec(someString, someSubString, 1, 3);
cout << someSubString << endl;
return 0;
}
void subsec(char AString[], char Substring[], int start, int length) {
for (int b = start; b <= length; b++) {
Substring[b] = AString[b];
}
}
Maybe this does what you're looking for? It's hard to say as your initial implementation used the length parameter as more of an end position.
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
void subsec(char AString[], char Substring[], int start, int length)
{
const int end = start + length;
int pos = 0;
for(int b = start; b < end; ++b)
{
Substring[pos++] = AString[b];
}
Substring[pos] = 0;
}
int main()
{
char someString[50] = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz";
char someSubString[50];
subsec(someString, someSubString, 13, 10);
cout << someSubString << endl;
return 0;
}
There are several problems with the code:
1) The char arraysomeSubString has size 1 which cannot hold the substring.
2) The subsec is not correctly implemented, you should copy to the Substring from index 0.
Also remember to add \0 at the end of the substring.
void subsec(char AString[], char *Substring, int start, int length) {
int ii = 0;
for (int jj = start; jj <= length; jj++, ii++) {
Substring[ii] = AString[jj];
}
Substring[ii] = '\0';
}
You need to allocate more than 1 byte for someSubString i.e.
char someSubString[] = "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx";
or just
char someSubString[100];
if you know the max size you'll ever need.
Either would allocate enough space for the string you're copying to it. Then, you're not doing anything about the terminating 0 either. At the end of a C-style string there needs to be a terminating null to signify end of string. Otherwise cout will print something like;
abcdefgxxxxxxx
if you initialized with x's as I indicated.
There are a few problems with your code as it stands. Firstly, as your compiler is no doubt warning you, in C++ a string literal has type const char[], not just char[].
Secondly, you need to have enough space to store your substring. A good way to do this is for your function to allocate the space it needs, and then pass back a pointer to this memory. This is the way things are typically done in C code. The only thing is that you have to remember to delete the allocated array when you're done with it. (There are other, better ways to do this in C++, with things like smart pointers and wrapper objects, but those come later :-) ).
Thirdly, you'll have a problem if you request a length which is actually longer than the passed-in string -- you'll run off the end and start copying random memory (or just crash), which is definitely not what you want. C strings are terminated with a "nul byte" -- so you need to check whether you've come across this.
Speaking of the nul, you need to make sure that your substring ends with one.
Lastly, it's not really a problem but there's no need for the start parameter, you can just pass a pointer to the middle of the array if you want to.
char* substring(const char* str, int length)
{
// Allocate memory for substring;
char* subs = new char[length+1];
// Copy characters from given string
int i = 0;
while (i < length && str[i] != '\0') {
subs[i] = str[i];
i++;
}
// Append the nul byte
subs[i] = '\0';
return subs;
}
int main()
{
const char someString[] = "foobarbaz"; // Note -- must be const in C++
char* subs = substring(someString + 3, 3);
assert(strcmp(subs, "bar") == 0);
delete subs;
}