I have an Arduino that controls timers. The settings for timers are stored in byte arrays. I need to convert the arrays to strings to SET a string on an external Redis server.
So, I have many arrays of bytes of different lengths that I need to convert to strings to pass as arguments to a function expecting char[]. I need the values to be separated by commas and terminated with '\0'.
byte timer[4] {1,5,23,120};
byte timer2[6] {0,0,0,0,0,0}
I have succeeded to do it manually for each array using sprintf() like this
char buf[30];
for (int i=0;i<5;i++){ buf[i] = (int) timer[i]; }
sprintf(buf, "%d,%d,%d,%d,%d",timer[0],timer[1],timer[2],timer[3],timer[4]);
That gives me an output string buf: 1,5,23,120
But I have to use a fixed number of 'placeholders' in sprintf().
I would like to come up with a function to which I could pass the name of the array (e.g. timer[]) and that would build a string, probably using a for loop of 'variable lengths' (depending of the particular array to to 'process') and many strcat() functions. I have tried a few ways to do this, none of them making sense to the compiler, nor to me!
Which way should I go looking?
Here is the low tech way you could do it in normal C.
char* toString(byte* bytes, int nbytes)
{
// Has to be static so it doesn't go out of scope at the end of the call.
// You could dynamically allocate memory based on nbytes.
// Size of 128 is arbitrary - pick something you know is big enough.
static char buffer[128];
char* bp = buffer;
*bp = 0; // means return will be valid even if nbytes is 0.
for(int i = 0; i < nbytes; i++)
{
if (i > 0) {
*bp = ','; bp++;
}
// sprintf can have errors, so probably want to check for a +ve
// result.
bp += sprintf(bp, "%d", bytes[i])
}
return buffer;
}
an implementation, assuming that timer is an array (else, size would have to be passed as a parameter) with the special handling of the comma.
Basically, print the integer in a temp buffer, then concatenate to the final buffer. Pepper with commas where needed.
The size of the output buffer isn't tested, mind.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <strings.h>
typedef unsigned char byte;
int main()
{
byte timer[4] = {1,5,23,120};
int i;
char buf[30] = "";
int first_item = 1;
for (i=0;i<sizeof(timer)/sizeof(timer[0]);i++)
{
char t[10];
if (!first_item)
{
strcat(buf,",");
}
first_item = 0;
sprintf(t,"%d",timer[i]);
strcat(buf,t);
}
printf(buf);
}
Related
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
struct Packet {
int a;
char b[17];
int c;
};
// char* dest has form char dest[n], src has length <= n and is null-terminated
// After the function, dest should satisfy:
// - If strlen(src)==n, dest is not null terminated
// - If strlen(src) < n, dest[n-1] = dest[strlen(src)] = '\0'
static void strncpy_faster(char* dest, const char* src, size_t n) {
size_t i;
for (i = 0; i < n; i++) {
dest[i] = src[i];
if (src[i] == '\0')
break;
}
//while (i < n) {dest[i] = '\0'; i++;} // C standard strncpy do this
if (i < n)
dest[n - 1] = '\0';
}
string charArrayToString(const char* a, size_t n) {
size_t len = 0;
while (len < n && a[len]!='\0') len++;
return std::string(a, a+len);
}
int main()
{
string s = "12341234123412345";
Packet packet;
strncpy_faster(packet.b, s.c_str(), 17);
cout << charArrayToString(packet.b, sizeof(packet.b)) << "\n";
s = "12345";
strncpy_faster(packet.b, s.c_str(), 17);
cout << charArrayToString(packet.b, sizeof(packet.b));
return 0;
}
I'm dealing with struct that have fixed-size char arrays. Let's say I really, really want to keep struct size small (or I need to send them over network), so std::string is not used in my struct (it cost 32 bytes, while I have multiple small char arrays with size 4-20). I have 2 problems with strncpy:
strncpy 2 char array with same length will emit warning about "potentially not having null-terminated character", which is intended, but I don't need that warning.
strncpy pad ALL leftover characters (from dest[strlen(src) -> n-1]) with '\0'. This is a waste of processing in my program.
So, my strncpy_faster only assign up to 2 positions to '\0': the last element of the array, and the position of strlen(src). Since std::string() requires a null-terminated char array (NTCA), I use charArrayToString() to convert non-NTCA to string.
Is this version of strncpy safe? Are there any C/C++ functions that requires strncpy to fill all leftover bytes with '\0', or do they only need a null terminator? I don't know why the standard requires strncpy to zero-out remaining bytes.
Is this version of strncpy safe?
Yes.
It's as safe as strncpy is. So.... not safe.
Are there any C/C++ functions that requires strncpy to fill all leftover bytes with '\0', or do they only need a null terminator?
No function require it.
Notes from Linux man-pages man strcpy:
NOTES
Some programmers consider strncpy() to be inefficient and error
prone. If the programmer knows (i.e., includes code to test!) that
the size of dest is greater than the length of src, then strcpy() can
be used.
One valid (and intended) use of strncpy() is to copy a C string to
a fixed-length buffer while ensuring both that the buffer is not
overflowed and that unused bytes in the destination buffer are zeroed
out (perhaps to prevent information leaks if the buffer is to be
written to media or transmitted to another process via an interprocess
communication technique).
Consider using (and/or implementing) strlcpy. Remember about first rule of optimization.
After trying for about 1 hour, my code didn't work because of this:
void s_s(string const& s, char data[10])
{
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
data[i] = s[i];
}
int main()
{
string ss = "1234567890";
char data[10];
s_s("1234567890", data);
cout << data << endl;//why junk
}
I simply don't understand why the cout displays junk after the char array. Can someone please explain why and how to solve it?
You need to null terminate your char array.
std::cout.operator<<(char*) uses \0 to know where to stop.
Your char[] decays to char* by the way.
Look here.
As already mentioned you want to NUL terminate your array, but here's something else to consider:
If s is your source string, then you want to loop to s.size(), so that you don't loop past the size of your source string.
void s_s(std::string const& s, char data[20])
{
for (unsigned int i = 0; i < s.size(); i++)
data[i] = s[i];
data[s.size()] = '\0';
}
Alternatively, you can try this:
std::copy(ss.begin(), ss.begin()+ss.size(),
data);
data[ss.size()] = '\0';
std::cout << data << std::endl;
You have ONLY allocated 10 bytes for data
The string is actually 11 bytes since there is an implied '\0' at the end
At a minimum you should increase the size of data to 11, and change your loop to copy the '\0' as well
The function std::ostream::operator<< that you are trying to use in the last line of the main will take your char array as a pointer and will print every char until the null sentinel character is found (the character is \0).
This sentinel character is generally generated for you in statements where a C-string literal is defined:
char s[] = "123";
In the above example sizeof(s) is 4 because the actual characters stored are:
'1', '2', '3', '\0'
The last character is fundamental in tasks that require to loop on every char of a const char* string, because the condition for the loop to terminate, is that the \0 must be read.
In your example the "junk" that you see are the bytes following the 0 char byte in the memory (interpreted as char). This behavior is clearly undefined and can potentially lead the program to crash.
One solution is to obviously add the \0 char at the end of the char array (of course fixing the size).
The best solution, though, is to never use const char* for strings at all. You are correctly using std::string in your example, which will prevent this kind of problems and many others.
If you ever need a const char* (for C APIs for example) you can always use std::string::c_str and retrieve the C string version of the std::string.
Your example could be rewritten to:
int main(int, char*[]) {
std::string ss = "1234567890";
const char* data = ss.c_str();
std::cout << data << std::endl;
}
(in this particular instance, a version of std::ostream::operator<< that takes a std::string is already defined, so you don't even need data at all)
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;
}
I am working on some code that reads in a data file. The file frequently contains numeric values of various lengths encoded in ASCII that I need to convert to integers. The problem is that they are not null-terminated, which of course causes problems with atoi. The solution I have been using is to manually append a null to the character sequence, and then convert it.
This is the code that I have been using; it works fine, but it seems very kludgy.
char *append_null(const char *chars, const int size)
{
char *tmp = new char[size + 2];
memcpy(tmp, chars, size);
tmp[size + 1] = '\0';
return tmp;
}
int atoi2(const char *chars, const int size)
{
char *tmp = append_null(chars, size);
int result = atoi(tmp);
delete[] tmp;
return result;
}
int main()
{
char *test = new char[20];
test[0] = '1';
test[1] = '2';
test[2] = '3';
test[3] = '4';
cout << atoi2(test, 4) << endl;
}
I am wondering if there is a better way to approach this problem.
Fixed-format integer conversion is still well within handroll range where the library won't do:
size_t mem_tozd_rjzf(const char *buf, size_t len) // digits only
{
int n=0;
while (len--)
n = n*10 + *buf++ - '0';
return n;
}
long mem_told(const char *buf, size_t len) // spaces, sign, digits
{
long n=0, sign=1;
while ( len && isspace(*buf) )
--len, ++buf;
if ( len ) switch(*buf) {
case '-': sign=-1; \
case '+': --len, ++buf;
}
while ( len-- && isdigit(*buf) )
n = n*10 + *buf++ -'0';
return n*sign;
}
In C++11, you can say std::stoi(std::string(chars, size)), all from <string>.
int i = atoi(std::string(chars, size).c_str());
Your method will work, although you should only need size+1 for appending the null and the null will go at position size. Currently, your test code doesn't actually make the function call, but I'll assume that you have a way to determine when the null-terminated characters end. If possibly, I'd recommend making the null termination there so that you don't have to worry about catching cases where you hit an exception before you can deallocate the memory (memory which, honestly, may or may not have been allocated if you start catching exceptions).
std::string str = "1234";
boost::lexical_cast<int>(str); // 1234
The problem as formulated requires to construct a string given an array of known size, then converting its text into a numeric value.
To convert text into values, C++ has a unified mechanism: streams.
In your case, you can do the following:
int i = 0;
std::stringstream(std::string(yourbuffer, yoursize)) >> i;
This will completely avoid any plain old C reference.
But, since -as you say- all values come from a file... why just don't read the file itself as a stream via std::fstream ?
The question says (emph mine):
The file frequently contains numeric values of various lengths encoded
in ASCII that I need to convert to integers. The problem is that they
are not null-terminated, which of course causes problems with atoi.
This does not really pose a problem, as, if we look at the docs for atoi or strtol, they clearly state:
Function discards any whitespace characters until first non-whitespace
character is found. Then it takes as many characters as possible to
form a valid integer number representation and converts them to
integer value.
That means, it doesn't matter at all that the numbers aren't null terminated, as long as they are delimited by something that stops conversion.
And if they are not delimited, then you have to know the size, and when you know the size, I would also recommend a hand-coded solution like in the other answer.
I know this answer is not answering OP's question, but it helps if your source of char* is a char array with known size.
Live demo
#include <fmt/core.h>
#include <type_traits>
#include <iostream>
// SFINAE fallback
template<typename T, typename =
std::enable_if< std::is_pointer<T>::value >
>
int charArrayToInt(const T arr){ // Fall back for user friendly compiler errors
static_assert(false == std::is_pointer<T>::value, "`charArrayToInt()` dosen't allow conversion from pointer!");
return -1;
}
// Valid for both null or non-null-terminated char array
template<size_t sz>
int charArrayToInt(const char(&arr)[sz]){
// It doesn't matter whether it's null terminated or not
std::string str(arr, sz);
return std::stof(str);
}
int main() {
char number[2] = {'4','2'};
int ret = charArrayToInt(number);
fmt::print("The answer is {}. ", ret);
return 0;
}
Ok so here are the parts of my code that I'm having trouble with:
char * historyArray;
historyArray = new char [20];
//get input
cin.getline(readBuffer, 512);
cout << readBuffer <<endl;
//save to history
for(int i = 20; i > 0; i--){
strcpy(historyArray[i], historyArray[i-1]); //ERROR HERE//
}
strcpy(historyArray[0], readBuffer); //and here but it's the same error//
The error that i'm receiving is:
"invalid conversion from 'char' to 'char*'
initializing argument 1 of 'char* strcpy(char*, const char*)'
The project is to create a psudo OS Shell that will catch and handle interrupts as well as run basic unix commands. The issue that I'm having is that I must store the past 20 commands into a character array that is dynamically allocated on the stack. (And also de-allocated)
When I just use a 2d character array the above code works fine:
char historyArray[20][];
but the problem is that it's not dynamic...
And yes I do know that strcpy is supposed to be used to copy strings.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
historyArray points to (the first element of) an array of 20 chars. You can only store one string in that array.
In C, you could create a char** object and have it point to the first element of an array of char* objects, where each element points to a string. This is what the argv argument to main() does.
But since you're using C++, it makes a lot more sense to use a vector of strings and let the library do the memory management for you.
Stop using C idioms in a C++ program:
std::deque<std::string> historyArray;
//get input
std::string readBuffer;
std::getline(std::cin, readBuffer);
std::cout << readBuffer << std::endl;
//save to history
historyArray.push_front(readBuffer);
if(historyArray.size() > 20)
historyArray.pop_back();
As a result, we have:
No buffer-overflow threat in readBuffer / getline()
No pointers, anywhere, to confuse us.
No arrays to overstep the ends of
Arbitrarily long input strings
Trivially-proven memory allocation semantics
Two solutions. The first is if you for some reason really want arrays, the other is more recommended and more "C++"ish using std::strings.
char * historyArray[20]; // Create an array of char pointers
// ...
historyArray[i] = new char[SIZE]; // Do this for each element in historyArray
Then you can use strcpy on the elements in historyArray.
Second solution which I repeat is recommended (I've fixed a few other things):
string historyArray[20];
getline(cin, readBuffer); // Make readbuffer an std::string as well
cout << readBuffer << endl;
for(int i = 19; i > 0; i--){ // I think you meant 19 instead of 20
historyArray[i] = historyArray[i-1];
}
historyArray[0] = readBuffer;
historyArray[i] is a char. It is a single character. You want to use a sting. Your fundemental problem is that historyArray is a char* which means that it points to a memory range containing characters. You want it to be a char** which is a pointer to a pointer to a string. Your initialization code would be
char** historyArray;
historyArray = new char* [20];
for (int i = 0; i < 20; i++)
{
historyArray[i] = new char [512]; //Big enough to have a 512 char buffer copied in
}
Error 1: You're indexing past your array bounds with i being set to 20.
Error 2: historyArray[i] is a char, not a char *. You need &historyArray[i].
strcpy(&historyArray[i], &historyArray[i-1]);
Array notation gives references while strcopy wants pointers. Convert references to pointers with address-of (&) operator.
char * historyArray;
historyArray = new char [20];
//get input
cin.getline(readBuffer, 512);
cout << readBuffer <<endl;
//save to history
for(int i = 20; i > 0; i--){
strcpy(&(historyArray[i]), &(historyArray[i-1])); //ERROR HERE//
}
strcpy(historyArray, readBuffer); //and here but it's the same error//
But that will only fix the compiler errors, not the logical errors in the code. Your using C++ so the string solution:
vector<string> history;
cin.getline(readBuffer,512);
history.push_back(readBuffer);
Alternatively if you want one long string containing everything from readBuffer:
string history;
cin.getline(readBuffer,512);
history = history += string(readBuffer);
For example...