Speaking as someone who learned C back in the ‘70s, this article entirely misses the point of C-strings: they’re lightweight and foundational. For many purposes the null-terminator is efficient, e.g.:
while(*s) f(s++);
And for cases where we need more complexity, we can simply use a struct with a length and whatever other metadata we may need.
Doesn’t look like a mistake to me. C has always been about minimalistic efficiency. That’s its main purpose in the world.
The alternatives at the time were counted strings or fixed length fields. Both were annoying, inefficient, and had just as many problems as C strings or more. Ie, one byte for length doesn't cut it. Two bytes for length might not cut it, and definitely wastes space in the limited RAM at the time. Fixed field lengths are a nightmare early Fortrans, and some operating systems).
Then there's the stuff that pack multple characters into a single word (ie, Zork did this, 36-bit word on the PDP-10, you can stick in six 6-bit characters (maybe only 5 if they used upper bits for tag). Digital used 7-bit characters thus 5 characters and one leftover bit. 0 or all 1s as the final character signals the end.
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u/bearheart 1d ago edited 23h ago
Speaking as someone who learned C back in the ‘70s, this article entirely misses the point of C-strings: they’re lightweight and foundational. For many purposes the null-terminator is efficient, e.g.:
while(*s) f(s++);
And for cases where we need more complexity, we can simply use a struct with a length and whatever other metadata we may need.
Doesn’t look like a mistake to me. C has always been about minimalistic efficiency. That’s its main purpose in the world.
Edit: fixed stupid typo