[boost] Re: static sized strings

From: John Nagle (nagle_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-05-27 20:08:44

Reece Dunn wrote:
> Different programmers favour the different semantics, so I ask: why not 
> parameterise it, providing a default behaviour.

    As with "do we null-terminate", I think we have to pick a
behavior and stick to it.  I could live with either set of
semantics, but adding a parameter makes the issue more confusing.
(And you have to supply conversions.) Most strings are sized a bit too
big, anyway.

    On a related subject, we should have unconditional null termination.
"fixed_string" items are always null-terminated.  "snprintf",
"strncat", etc. have hazardous semantics: if you overflow the string,
it is not null terminated.  (This is a bug in my
current version, incidentally.)  We should guarantee null
termination in all cases.  The whole point of this
class is improved safety, after all.

                                John Nagle
                                Team Overbot