How to get the terminating NUL character \x00 into a string?

Question

How would i get a string with the null character \x00 since \x00 is also the terminating character?

I really do need it for part of my program.

The string I need is "\x00\x00\x00\x00". Is there some special syntax for it? What is it?

Answer 1

In C++ the std::string class will work while including NUL characters.

However:

• The c_str() function will fail.
• The constructors that read a const char* will fail.

You would probably be better served by using a std::vector<char> .

Answer 2

You're doing it correctly. You just need to avoid interpreting a null as the ending character.

But then how do you know where it ends? I don't know; you could store the length somewhere instead.

Answer 3

You can have a "normal" string which embeds nulls, but at the first null any function that expects a null-terminated string will stop processing it; thus, you need to use counted strings.

C++ std::string being a type of counted string, you can use it to carry around these strings. Keep in mind however that you shouldn't convert it back to a C string when using it (ie don't use the c_str() method), otherwise you will be back to square one.

However, to have more specific suggestions, you should explain a bit better what are you trying to achieve.

Answer 4

If it is a std::string you want, you can get any size you want

std::string s(10, '\0');

gives you a string with 10 nul characters.

Answer 5

std::string str("\0\0\0\0", 4);

This constructor tells string to use the 1st 4 characters of the char*, without interpreting any \0 characters as null.