On 7/8/2011 4:53 AM, Regan Heath wrote:
On Fri, 08 Jul 2011 10:49:08 +0100, Walter Bright <newshou...@digitalmars.com>
wrote:
On 7/8/2011 2:26 AM, Regan Heath wrote:
Why can't we have the
compiler call it automatically whenever we pass a string, or char[] to an extern
"C" function, where the parameter is defined as char*?
Because char* in C does not necessarily mean "zero terminated string".
Sure, but in many (most?) cases it does. And in those cases where it doesn't you
could argue ubyte* or byte* should have been used in the D extern "C"
declaration instead. Plus, in those cases, worst case scenario, D passes an
extra \0 byte to those functions which either ignore it because they were also
passed a length, or expect a fixed sized structure, or .. I don't know what as I
can't imagine another case where char* would be used without it being a "zero
terminated string", or passing/knowing the length ahead of time.
In the worst case, you're adding an extra memory allocation and function call
overhead (that is hidden to the user, and not turn-off-able). This is not
acceptable when interfacing to C.
D is already allocating an extra \0 byte for string constants right?
Yes, but in a way that is essentially free.
