Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-programming (118 mails)

[Jerry Feldman <gaf@xxxxxxx>]

On Friday 15 April 2005 10:44 am, Stefan Hundhammer wrote:
> C's string handling for instance sucks - it is the source of most
> security holes that need to be fixed. Buffer overflows happen because C
> does not have a concept for variable length strings - it only has
> character pointers. What a nightmare.
I disagree with your opinion. 
A C string is an array of characters. 
One must remember that C is NOT a high level language like FORTRAN or COBOL, 
it was designed as an implementation language. C++ implements a variable 
length string based on the C strings. 

Some other languages use a tld type of string where the first byte of the 
string contains a length. Languages like BASIC are more flexible because 
their string handling is performed under the covers. 
-- 
Jerry Feldman <gaf@xxxxxxx>
Boston Linux and Unix user group
http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9
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