When I loop over a temporary std::string (rvalue?) using a range-based for loop, there seems to be an extra character, the null terminator \0.
When the string is not temporary (lvalue instead?), there is no extra character. Why?
std::map<char, int> m;
for (char c : "bar") m[c] = 0;
for (auto [c, f] : m) {
if (c == '\0') std::cout << "this is a null char, backward slash zero" << std::endl;
std::cout << c << std::endl;
}
Output:
this is a null char, backward slash zero
a
b
r
(note the empty line, where the \0 is being printed)
Compared to:
std::map<char,int> m;
std::string s = "bar";
for (char c : s) m[c] = 0;
for (auto [c, f] : m) {
if (c == '\0') std::cout << "this is a null char, backward slash zero" << std::endl;
std::cout << c << std::endl;
}
Output:
a
b
r
Because "bar" is not a std::string, but a char array (const char[4]) containing 4 elements, including the last null character. I.e. c-style string literal:
The null character (
'\0',L'\0',char16_t(), etc) is always appended to the string literal: thus, a string literal"Hello"is aconst char[6]holding the characters'H','e','l','l','o', and'\0'.
For temporary std::strings it will work as you expected, i.e. no null character contained.
for (char c : std::string{"bar"}) m[c] = 0;
Or
using namespace std::string_literals;
for (char c : "bar"s) m[c] = 0;
BTW as @HolyBlackCat suggested you can also use std::string_view (since C++17) which won't include the null-terminated character when constructed from a c-style string literal. E.g.
for (char c : std::string_view{"bar"}) m[c] = 0;
Or
using namespace std::literals;
for (char c : "bar"sv) m[c] = 0;
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