I wrote a very simple encryption program to practice c++ and i came across this weird behavior. When i convert my char* array to a string by setting the string equal to the array, then i get a wrong string, however when i create an empty string and add append the chars in the array individually, it creates the correct string. Could someone please explain why this is happening, i just started programming in c++ last week and i cannot figure out why this is not working.
Btw i checked online and these are apparently both valid ways of converting a char array to a string.
void expandPassword(string* pass)
{
int pHash = hashCode(pass);
int pLen = pass->size();
char* expPass = new char[264];
for (int i = 0; i < 264; i++)
{
expPass[i] = (*pass)[i % pLen] * (char) rand();
}
string str;
for (int i = 0; i < 264; i++)
{
str += expPass[i];// This creates the string version correctly
}
string str2 = expPass;// This creates much shorter string
cout <<str<<"\n--------------\n"<<str2<<"\n---------------\n";
delete[] expPass;
}
EDIT: I removed all of the zeros from the array and it did not change anything
When copying from char* to std::string, the assignment operator stops when it reaches the first NULL character. This points to a problem with your "encryption" which is causing embedded NULL characters.
This is one of the main reasons why encoding is used with encrypted data. After encryption, the resulting data should be encoded using Hex/base16 or base64 algorithms.
a c-string as what you are constructing is a series of characters ending with a \0 (zero) ascii value.
in the case of
expPass[i] = (*pass)[i % pLen] * (char) rand();
you may be inserting \0 into the array if the expression evaluates to 0, as well as you do not append a \0 at the end of the string either to assure it being a valid c-string.
when you do
string str2 = expPass;
it can very well be that the string gets shorter since it gets truncated when it finds a \0 somewhere in the string.
This is because str2 = expPass interprets expPass as a C-style string, meaning that a zero-valued ("null") byte '\0' indicates the end of the string. So, for example, this:
char p[2];
p[0] = 'a';
p[1] = '\0';
std::string s = p;
will cause s to have length 1, since p has only one nonzero byte before its terminating '\0'. But this:
char p[2];
p[0] = 'a';
p[1] = '\0';
std::string s;
s += p[0];
s += p[1];
will cause s to have length 2, because it explicitly adds both bytes to s. (A std::string, unlike a C-style string, can contain actual null bytes — though it's not always a good idea to take advantage of that.)
I guess the following line cuts your string:
expPass[i] = (*pass)[i % pLen] * (char) rand();
If rand() returns 0 you get a string terminator at position i.
Related
I am fairly new with C++ so for some people the answer to the quesiton I have might seem quite obvious.
What I want to achieve is to create a method which would return the given char array fill with empty spaces before and after it in order to meet certain length. So the effect at the end would be as if the given char array would be in the middle of the other, bigger char array.
Lets say we have a char array with HelloWorld!
I want the method to return me a new char array with the length specified beforehand and the given char array "positioned" in the middle of returning char array.
char ch[] = "HelloWorld";
char ret[20]; // lets say we want to have the resulting char array the length of 20 chars
char ret[20] = " HelloWorld "; // this is the result to be expected as return of the method
In case of odd number of given char array would like for it to be in offset of one space on the left of the middle.
I would also like to avoid any memory consuming strings or any other methods that are not in standard library - keep it as plain as possible.
What would be the best way to tackle this issue? Thanks!
There are mainly two ways of doing this: either using char literals (aka char arrays), like you would do in C language or using built-in std::string type (or similar types), which is the usual choice if you're programming in C++, despite there are exceptions.
I'm providing you one example for each.
First, using arrays, you will need to include cstring header to use built-in string literals manipulation functions. Keep in mind that, as part of the length of it, a char array always terminates with the null terminator character '\0' (ASCII code is 0), therefore for a DIM-dimensioned string you will be able to store your characters in DIM - 1 positions. Here is the code with comments.
constexpr int DIM = 20;
char ch[] = "HelloWorld";
char ret[DIM] = "";
auto len_ch = std::strlen(ch); // length of ch without '\0' char
auto n_blanks = DIM - len_ch - 1; // number of blank chars needed
auto half_n_blanks = n_blanks / 2; // half of that
// fill in from begin and end of ret with blanks
for (auto i = 0u; i < half_n_blanks; i++)
ret[i] = ret[DIM - i - 2] = ' ';
// copy ch content into ret starting from half_n_blanks position
memcpy_s(
ret + half_n_blanks, // start inserting from here
DIM - half_n_blanks, // length from our position to the end of ret
ch, // string we need to copy
len_ch); // length of ch
// if odd, after ch copied chars
// there will be a space left to insert a blank in
if (n_blanks % 2 == 1)
*(ret + half_n_blanks + len_ch) = ' ';
I chose first to insert blank spaces both to the begin and to the end of the string and then to copy the content of ch.
The second approach is far easier (to code and to understand). The max characters size a std::string (defined in header string) can contain is std::npos, which is the max number you can have for the type std::size_t (usually a typedef for unsigned int). Basically, you don't have to worry about a std::string max length.
std::string ch = "HelloWorld", ret;
auto ret_max_length = 20;
auto n_blanks = ret_max_length - ch.size();
// insert blanks at the beginning
ret.append(n_blanks / 2, ' ');
// append ch
ret += ch;
// insert blanks after ch
// if odd, simply add 1 to the number of blanks
ret.append(n_blanks / 2 + n_blanks % 2, ' ');
The approach I took here is different, as you can see.
Notice that, because of '\0', the result of these two methods are NOT the same. If you want to obtain the same behaviour, you may either add 1 to DIM or subtract 1 from ret_max_length.
Assuming that we know the size, s, of the array, ret and knowing that the last character of any char array is '\0', we find the length, l, of the input char array, ch.
int l = 0;
int i;
for(i=0; ch[i]!='\0'; i++){
l++;
}
Then we compute how many spaces we need on either side. If total_space is even, then there are equal spaces on either side. Otherwise, we can choose which side will have the extra space, in this case, the left side.
int total_spaces = size-l-1; // subtract by 1 to adjust for '\0' character
int spaces_right = 0, spaces_left = 0;
if((total_spaces%2) == 0){
spaces_left = total_spaces/2;
spaces_right = total_spaces/2;
}
else{
spaces_left = total_spaces/2;
spaces_right = (total_spaces/2)+1;
}
Then first add the left_spaces, then the input array, ch, and then the right_spaces to ret.
i=0;
while(spaces_left > 0){
ret[i] = ' ';
spaces_left--;
i++;
} // add spaces
ret[i] = '\0';
strcat(ret, ch); // concatenate ch to ret
while(spaces_right){
ret[i] = ' ';
spaces_right--;
i++;
}
ret[i] = '\0';
Make sure to include <cstring> to use strcat().
I could not phrase the question properly but here it goes: I want to create a random password and that password contains special characters,letter and numbers
so i have decided the ASCII range and assigned them to the password array
everything works properly but when i print it out to the console weird characters pop up that were not in the range.
int main(){
srand(time(nullptr));
char password[15];
int i = 0;
for (i = 0; i < 15; i++)
{
password[i] = (rand() % 89) + 33;
}
cout << password << endl;
return 0;
}
that is the code that causes problem but when i assign the last element to be null value it works properly.
is it because when you create a c type string the last index should always be null?
A string must finish with a string terminator, or it isn't a string. If you omit the terminator, there is no way to know how long the string is. One might assume that since password is const char[15] that the size could be deduced, but in practice, just about everything that works with strings will treat it as a pointer and iterate until a null terminator is found. Since you don't have one, they will iterate past the end of your buffer leading to undefined behavior. Consider using std::string to avoid these concerns. See Null-terminated byte strings.
Why does this code produce runtime issues:
char stuff[100];
strcat(stuff,"hi ");
strcat(stuff,"there");
but this doesn't?
char stuff[100];
strcpy(stuff,"hi ");
strcat(stuff,"there");
strcat will look for the null-terminator, interpret that as the end of the string, and append the new text there, overwriting the null-terminator in the process, and writing a new null-terminator at the end of the concatenation.
char stuff[100]; // 'stuff' is uninitialized
Where is the null terminator? stuff is uninitialized, so it might start with NUL, or it might not have NUL anywhere within it.
In C++, you can do this:
char stuff[100] = {}; // 'stuff' is initialized to all zeroes
Now you can do strcat, because the first character of 'stuff' is the null-terminator, so it will append to the right place.
In C, you still need to initialize 'stuff', which can be done a couple of ways:
char stuff[100]; // not initialized
stuff[0] = '\0'; // first character is now the null terminator,
// so 'stuff' is effectively ""
strcpy(stuff, "hi "); // this initializes 'stuff' if it's not already.
In the first case, stuff contains garbage. strcat requires both the destination and the source to contain proper null-terminated strings.
strcat(stuff, "hi ");
will scan stuff for a terminating '\0' character, where it will start copying "hi ". If it doesn't find it, it will run off the end of the array, and arbitrarily bad things can happen (i.e., the behavior is undefined).
One way to avoid the problem is like this:
char stuff[100];
stuff[0] = '\0'; /* ensures stuff contains a valid string */
strcat(stuff, "hi ");
strcat(stuff, "there");
Or you can initialize stuff to an empty string:
char stuff[100] = "";
which will fill all 100 bytes of stuff with zeros (the increased clarity is probably worth any minor performance issue).
Because stuff is uninitialized before the call to strcpy. After the declaration stuff isn't an empty string, it is uninitialized data.
strcat appends data to the end of a string - that is it finds the null terminator in the string and adds characters after that. An uninitialized string isn't gauranteed to have a null terminator so strcat is likely to crash.
If there were to intialize stuff as below you could perform the strcat's:
char stuff[100] = "";
strcat(stuff,"hi ");
strcat(stuff,"there");
Strcat append a string to existing string. If the string array is empty, it is not going go find end of string ('\0') and it will cause run time error.
According to Linux man page, simple strcat is implemented this way:
char*
strncat(char *dest, const char *src, size_t n)
{
size_t dest_len = strlen(dest);
size_t i;
for (i = 0 ; i < n && src[i] != '\0' ; i++)
dest[dest_len + i] = src[i];
dest[dest_len + i] = '\0';
return dest;
}
As you can see in this implementation, strlen(dest) will not return correct string length unless dest is initialized to correct c string values. You may get lucky to have an array with the first value of zero at char stuff[100]; , but you should not rely on it.
Also, I would advise against using strcpy or strcat as they can lead to some unintended problems.
Use strncpy and strncat, as they help prevent buffer overflows.
Do you guys know why the following code crash during the runtime?
char* word;
word = new char[20];
word = "HeLlo";
for (auto it = word; it != NULL; it++){
*it = (char) tolower(*it);
I'm trying to lowercase a char* (string). I'm using visual studio.
Thanks
You cannot compare it to NULL. Instead you should be comparing *it to '\0'. Or better yet, use std::string and never worry about it :-)
In summary, when looping over a C-style string. You should be looping until the character you see is a '\0'. The iterator itself will never be NULL, since it is simply pointing a place in the string. The fact that the iterator has a type which can be compared to NULL is an implementation detail that you shouldn't touch directly.
Additionally, you are trying to write to a string literal. Which is a no-no :-).
EDIT:
As noted by #Cheers and hth. - Alf, tolower can break if given negative values. So sadly, we need to add a cast to make sure this won't break if you feed it Latin-1 encoded data or similar.
This should work:
char word[] = "HeLlo";
for (auto it = word; *it != '\0'; ++it) {
*it = tolower(static_cast<unsigned char>(*it));
}
You're setting word to point to the string literal, but literals are read-only, so this results in undefined behavior when you assign to *it. You need to make a copy of it in the dynamically-allocated memory.
char *word = new char[20];
strcpy(word, "HeLlo");
Also in your loop you should compare *it != '\0'. The end of a string is indicated by the character being the null byte, not the pointer being null.
Given code (as I'm writing this):
char* word;
word = new char[20];
word = "HeLlo";
for (auto it = word; it != NULL; it++){
*it = (char) tolower(*it);
This code has Undefined Behavior in 2 distinct ways, and would have UB also in a third way if only the text data was slightly different:
Buffer overrun.
The continuation condition it != NULL will not be false until the pointer it has wrapped around at the end of the address range, if it does.
Modifying read only memory.
The pointer word is set to point to the first char of a string literal, and then the loop iterates over that string and assigns to each char.
Passing possible negative value to tolower.
The char classification functions require a non-negative argument, or else the special value EOF. This works fine with the string "HeLlo" under an assumption of ASCII or unsigned char type. But in general, e.g. with the string "Blåbærsyltetøy", directly passing each char value to tolower will result in negative values being passed; a correct invocation with ch of type char is (char) tolower( (unsigned char)ch ).
Additionally the code has a memory leak, by allocating some memory with new and then just forgetting about it.
A correct way to code the apparent intent:
using Byte = unsigned char;
auto to_lower( char const c )
-> char
{ return Byte( tolower( Byte( c ) ) ); }
// ...
string word = "Hello";
for( char& ch : word ) { ch = to_lower( ch ); }
There are already two nice answers on how to solve your issues using null terminated c-strings and poitners. For the sake of completeness, I propose you an approach using c++ strings:
string word; // instead of char*
//word = new char[20]; // no longuer needed: strings take care for themseves
word = "HeLlo"; // no worry about deallocating previous values: strings take care for themselves
for (auto &it : word) // use of range for, to iterate through all the string elements
it = (char) tolower(it);
Its crashing because you are modifying a string literal.
there is a dedicated functions for this
use
strupr for making string uppercase and strlwr for making the string lower case.
here is an usage example:
char str[ ] = "make me upper";
printf("%s\n",strupr(str));
char str[ ] = "make me lower";
printf("%s\n",strlwr (str));
I need an empty char array, but when i try do thing like this:
char *c;
c = new char [m];
int i;
for (i = 0; i < m; i++)
c[i] = 65 + i;
and then I print c. can see that c = 0x00384900 "НННННННээээ««««««««юоюою"
after cycle it becomes: 0x00384900 "ABCDEFGээээ««««««««юоюою"
How can I solve this problem? Or maybe there is way with string?
If you're trying to create a string, you need to make sure that the character sequence is terminated with the null character \0.
In other words:
char *c;
c = new char [m+1];
int i;
for (i = 0; i < m; i++)
c[i] = 65 + i;
c[m] = '\0';
Without it, functions on strings like printf won't know where the string ends.
printf("%s\n",c); // should work now
If you create a heap array, OS will not initialiase it.
To do so you hvae these options:
Allocate an array statically or globally. The array will be filled with zeroes automatically.
Use ::memset( c, 0, m ); on heap-initialised or stack array to fill it with zeroes.
Use high-level types like std::string.
I believe that's your debugger trying to interpret the string. When using a char array to represent a string in C or C++, you need to include a null byte at the end of the string. So, if you allocate m + 1 characters for c, and then set c[m] = '\0', your debugger should give you the value you are expecting.
If you want a dynamically-allocated string, then the best option is to use the string class from the standard library:
#include <string>
std::string s;
for (i = 0; i < m; i++)
s.push_back(65 + i);
C strings are null terminated. That means that the last character must be a null character ('\0' or just 0).
The functions that manipulate your string use the characters between the beginning of the array (that you passed as parameter, first position in the array) and a null value. If there is no null character in your array the function will iterate pass it's memory until it finds one (memory leak). That's why you got some garbage printed in your example.
When you see a literal constant in your code, like printf("Hello");, it is translate into an array of char of length 6 ('H', 'e', 'l', 'l', 'o' and '\0');
Of course, to avoid such complexity you can use std::string.