How does one represent the empty char?

Question

I\'m currently writing a little program but I keep getting this error when compiling

error: empty character constant

I realize i

Answer 1

You can use c[i]= '\0' or simply c[i] = (char) 0.

The null/empty char is simply a value of zero, but can also be represented as a character with an escaped zero.

Answer 2

Yes, c[i]='' is not a valid code. We parenthesis character constant between ' ', e.g. c[i] = 'A'; char A. but you don't write any char in between ''.

Empty space is nothing but suppose if you wants to assigned space then do:

c[i] = ' ';
//      ^  space 

if wants to assigned nul char then do:

c[i] = '\0';
//       ^ null symbol 

Example: Suppose if c[] a string (nul \0 terminated char array) if you having a string. for example:

char c[10] = {'a', '2', 'c', '\0'};

And you replace second char with space:

c[1] = ' ';

and if you print it using printf as follows:

printf("\n c: %s", c);

then output would be:

  c:  a  c
//      ^ space printed 

And you replace second char with '\0':

c[1] = '\0';

then output would be:

  c:  a

because string terminated with \0.

Answer 3

It might be useful to assign a null in a string rather than explicitly making some index the null char '\0'. I've used this for testing functions that handle strings ensuring they stay within their appropriate bounds.

With:

char test_src[] = "fuu\0foo";

This creates an array of size 8 with values:

{'f', 'u', 'u', '\0', 'f', 'o', 'o', '\0'}