C: Why does gcc allow char array initialization with string literal larger than array?
Posted
by
Ashwin
on Stack Overflow
See other posts from Stack Overflow
or by Ashwin
Published on 2012-11-21T10:07:58Z
Indexed on
2012/11/22
17:00 UTC
Read the original article
Hit count: 142
int main()
{
char a[7] = "Network";
return 0;
}
A string literal in C is terminated internally with a nul character. So, the above code should give a compilation error since the actual length of the string literal Network
is 8 and it cannot fit in a char[7]
array.
However, gcc (even with -Wall
) on Ubuntu compiles this code without any error or warning.
Why does gcc allow this and not flag it as compilation error?
gcc only gives a warning (still no error!) when the char array size is smaller than the string literal. For example, it warns on:
char a[6] = "Network";
[Related] Visual C++ 2012 gives a compilation error for char a[7]
:
1>d:\main.cpp(3): error C2117: 'a' : array bounds overflow
1> d:\main.cpp(3) : see declaration of 'a'
© Stack Overflow or respective owner