Look at the following piece of code in C++:
char a1[] = {'a','b','c'};
char a2[] = "abc";
cout << sizeof(a1) << endl << sizeof(a2) << endl;
Though sizeof(char) is 1 byte, why does the output show sizeof(a2) as 4 and not 3 (as in case of a1)?
C-strings contain a null terminator, thus adding a character.
Essentially this:
char a2[] = {'a','b','c','\0'};
a2, not a1 - the init you cite here is what you get by stuffing the C-String into a2.That's because there's an extra null '\0' character added to the end of the C-string, whereas the first variable, a1 is an array of three seperate characters.
sizeof will tell you the byte size of a variable, but prefer strlen if you want the length of a C-string at runtime.
For a2, this is a string so it also contains the '\n'
Correction, after Ethan & Adam comment, this is not '\n' of course but null terminator which is '\0'
\n (linefeed) at the end of a2. There is a null (\0) character at the end of a string. Shame on you, upvoter.
a2 doesn't contain '\n' in the end but rather '\0'.