Inconsistency between std::string and string literals

Question

I have discovered a disturbing inconsistency between std::string and string literals in C++0x:

#include <iostream> #include <string>  int main() {     int i = 0;     for (auto e : "hello")         ++i;     std::cout << "Number of elements: " << i << '\n';      i = 0;     for (auto e : std::string("hello"))         ++i;     std::cout << "Number of elements: " << i << '\n';      return 0; } 

The output is:

Number of elements: 6 Number of elements: 5 

I understand the mechanics of why this is happening: the string literal is really an array of characters that includes the null character, and when the range-based for loop calls std::end() on the character array, it gets a pointer past the end of the array; since the null character is part of the array, it thus gets a pointer past the null character.

However, I think this is very undesirable: surely std::string and string literals should behave the same when it comes to properties as basic as their length?

Is there a way to resolve this inconsistency? For example, can std::begin() and std::end() be overloaded for character arrays so that the range they delimit does not include the terminating null character? If so, why was this not done?

EDIT: To justify my indignation a bit more to those who have said that I'm just suffering the consequences of using C-style strings which are a "legacy feature", consider code like the following:

template <typename Range> void f(Range&& r) {     for (auto e : r)     {         ...     } } 

Would you expect f("hello") and f(std::string("hello")) to do something different?

Answer 1

If we overloaded std::begin() and std::end() for const char arrays to return one less than the size of the array, then the following code would output 4 instead of the expected 5:

#include <iostream>  int main() {     const char s[5] = {'h', 'e', 'l', 'l', 'o'};     int i = 0;     for (auto e : s)         ++i;     std::cout << "Number of elements: " << i << '\n'; }