Re: NUL to terminate strings; was reinventing ASCII?

CBFalconer wrote:
> Eric Sosman wrote:
>> Rod Pemberton wrote:
>>
>>> A string can be an contiguous sequence of char - even with a
>>> length prefix. Whether it's C compliant is a separate issue. 
>>> The header containing the length just needs to be placed prior
>>> to the address representing the start of the string.
>>      "Prior to," but at what distance?
>>
>>         char *string = "Vogon poetry";
>>         assert (strlen(string) == 12);
>>         assert (strlen(string+6) == ???);
> 
> I don't see any point.  What is wrong with:
> 
>           assert (strlen(string + 6) == 6);

     Pemberton's proposal (as I understood it, anyhow) was to
store a string's length just before its first character, in
much the say some malloc() implementations store metadata
just before an allocated block:

	[12] V o g o n   p o e t r y
	     ^
	     The decayed `string' points here

strlen() would swizzle its argument to locate and fetch the 12
without hunting for a (non-existent) sentinel character.  And
my point was that

	[12] V o g o n   p o e t r y
	                 ^
	                 `string+6' points here

.... would cause strlen() to mis-swizzle its argument and
pick up some kind of garbage length.

-- 
Eric.Sosman@[EMAIL PROTECTED]