Convert non-null-terminated char* to int - c++

Question

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.

Answer 1

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;
}

Answer 2

In C++11, you can say std::stoi(std::string(chars, size)), all from <string>.

Answer 3

int i = atoi(std::string(chars, size).c_str());

Answer 4

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).

Answer 5

std::string str = "1234";
boost::lexical_cast<int>(str); // 1234

Answer 6

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 ?

Answer 7

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.

Answer 8

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;
}