null terminating a string

Question

gcc 4.4.4 c89

What is the standard way to null terminate a string? When I use the NULL I get a warning message.

*dest++ = 0; 
*dest++ =          


        

Answer 1

To your first question: I would go with Paul R's comment and terminate with '\0'. But the value 0 itself works also fine. A matter of taste. But don't use the MACRO NULLwhich is meant for pointers.

To your second question: If your string is not terminated with\0, it might still print the expected output because following your string is a non-printable character in your memory. This is a really nasty bug though, since it might blow up when you might not expect it. Always terminate a string with '\0'.