What does the symbol \0 mean in a string-literal?

Question

Consider following code:

char str[] = "Hello\0"; 

What is the length of str array, and with how much 0s it is ending?

Answer 1

sizeof str is 7 - five bytes for the "Hello" text, plus the explicit NUL terminator, plus the implicit NUL terminator.

strlen(str) is 5 - the five "Hello" bytes only.

The key here is that the implicit nul terminator is always added - even if the string literal just happens to end with \0. Of course, strlen just stops at the first \0 - it can't tell the difference.

There is one exception to the implicit NUL terminator rule - if you explicitly specify the array size, the string will be truncated to fit:

char str[6] = "Hello\0"; // strlen(str) = 5, sizeof(str) = 6 (with one NUL) char str[7] = "Hello\0"; // strlen(str) = 5, sizeof(str) = 7 (with two NULs) char str[8] = "Hello\0"; // strlen(str) = 5, sizeof(str) = 8 (with three NULs per C99 6.7.8.21) 

This is, however, rarely useful, and prone to miscalculating the string length and ending up with an unterminated string. It is also forbidden in C++.

Answer 2

The length of the array is 7, the NUL character \0 still counts as a character and the string is still terminated with an implicit \0

See this link to see a working example

Note that had you declared str as char str[6]= "Hello\0"; the length would be 6 because the implicit NUL is only added if it can fit (which it can't in this example.)

§ 6.7.8/p14
An array of character type may be initialized by a character string literal, optionally enclosed in braces. Sucessive characters of the character string literal (including the terminating null character if there is room or if the array is of unknown size) initialize the elements of the array.

Examples

char str[] = "Hello\0"; /* sizeof == 7, Explicit + Implicit NUL */ char str[5]= "Hello\0"; /* sizeof == 5, str is "Hello" with no NUL (no longer a C-string, just an array of char). This may trigger compiler warning */ char str[6]= "Hello\0"; /* sizeof == 6, Explicit NUL only */ char str[7]= "Hello\0"; /* sizeof == 7, Explicit + Implicit NUL */ char str[8]= "Hello\0"; /* sizeof == 8, Explicit + two Implicit NUL */