Need a text class.

[Guidosoft]

I require a class with top of the line text manipulation. I am not refering to a string class, something which is terminated by a null character, but a text class. The size of the text would not be a property dependent upon the location of a null character but rather the amount of space allocated for the text. In Visual Basic, this is called a string.

So can someone help me to find a good text manipulation class with all the bells and whistles?

[wildfrog]

I am not refering to a string class, something which is terminated by a null character, but a text class.

The std::string class isn't terminated by a null character, it's terminated by length. It's only when you use it with C string functions that the NULL character becomes a problem.

- petter

[Guidosoft]

Is there a way that I can put null characters in the string and retrieve the data in a buffer?

[wildfrog]

You can do it like this:

//create string with lots of nulls
std::string str("It's\0 too\0 late\0.", 18);

//create a buffer and copy all data
char* buf = new char[str.length()];
memcpy(buf, str.c_str(), str.length());

// clean up
delete[] buf;

- petter

[humptydumpty]

in Above code also if you check the value of str it will show only it's not Full statement this will also terminate on NULL .

Thanx

[wildfrog]

in Above code also if you check the value of str it will show only it's not Full statement this will also terminate on NULL.

What do you mean by 'check the value'? Internally this string should contain 18 characters (including zeros).

- petter

[humptydumpty]

peter i mean to say if we perform Initialization of string in following manner it will Show Only those character which appear before First Occurance of NULL

std::string str("it's\0 hello\0",18);
std::cout<<strlen(str.c_str());//here it's Will Show 4 Only

same way if i use a Pointer

char *str = new char[255]; //here you allocated space for 255 character
strcpy(str,"it's\0 hello");
std::cout<<str; //output will be it's Only
//and i tried

So we can See all Terminate at NULL condition only not on the basis of space allocation.That's what i want to say .what i feel from OP post.this is the answer of that question.

so here if you want to print full One on the basis of space you have to use escape character

std::string str("It's\\0 too\\0 late\\0");
 std::cout<<str.c_str();//and out put will be It's\\0 too\\0 late\\0
 std::cout<<strlen(str.c_str());//here it's Will Show 19 Only

Thanx

[wildfrog]

strcpy(str,"it's\0 hello");

strcpy is a c-string function and will terminate at the first occurance of a \0. But that doesn't apply to the std::string class:

//create string with lots of nulls
std::string str("It's\0 too\0 late\0.", 18);

//create a buffer and copy all data
char* buf = new char[str.length()];
memcpy(buf, str.c_str(), str.length()); // I don't use strcpy here

// print out all characters in 'buf'
for (int i = 0; i < str.length(); ++i)
    printf("%x - %c\n", buf[i], buf[i]);

// clean up
delete[] buf;

This should print out a list of all characters in str (after they've been copied to buf):

49 - I
74 - t
27 - '
73 - s
0  -
20 -
74 - t
6f - o
6f - o
0  -
20 -
6c - l
61 - a
74 - t
65 - e
0  -
2e - .
0  -

- petter

[Graham]

You can do it like this:

//create string with lots of nulls
std::string str("It's\0 too\0 late\0.", 18);

//create a buffer and copy all data
char* buf = new char[str.length()];
memcpy(buf, str.c_str(), str.length());

// clean up
delete[] buf;

- petter

You've got a couple of problems there:

1. There's no guarantee that string::c_str() returns a pointer to string's own buffer - it's allowed to create a new buffer and only fill it with the chars up to the first '\0;
2. Even if it did, there's no guarantee that the internal buffer occupies contiguous storage.

In practice, I can't see number 1 being too much of a problem (it could run into problems with ownership of the new buffer), but number 2 is potentially a killer.

However, you're correct that string, properly used (i.e. use c_str() sparingly and only when really needed), seems to meet the OP's requirements.

[humptydumpty]

here is a valid Solution for That

std::string str("It's\\0 too\\0 late\\0.");
std::cout<<str.c_str();//and out put will be It's\\0 too\\0 late\\0
std::cout<<std::endl;
char* buf = new char[str.length()+1];
strcpy(buf,str.c_str());
std::cout<<str.c_str();
delete[] buf;

Thanx

[wildfrog]

You've got a couple of problems there:

1. There's no guarantee that string::c_str() returns a pointer to string's own buffer - it's allowed to create a new buffer and only fill it with the chars up to the first '\0;
2. Even if it did, there's no guarantee that the internal buffer occupies contiguous storage.

In practice, I can't see number 1 being too much of a problem (it could run into problems with ownership of the new buffer), but number 2 is potentially a killer.

You're right about that, and the moral is that when working with std::string don't treat then like they're c-string... because they're not.

Maybe a solution would be to use std::copy:

std::copy(str.begin(), str.end(), buf);

- petter

[Guidosoft]

What about string:ata()? What does that do?

[exterminator]

What about string:ata()? What does that do?

I guess its the same except that data does not have traits::eos() appended as does c_str() has. So, data() returns size() number of elements while c_str() returns size() + 1 elements.

[Yves M]

You've got a couple of problems there:

1. There's no guarantee that string::c_str() returns a pointer to string's own buffer - it's allowed to create a new buffer and only fill it with the chars up to the first '\0;
2. Even if it did, there's no guarantee that the internal buffer occupies contiguous storage.

In practice, I can't see number 1 being too much of a problem (it could run into problems with ownership of the new buffer), but number 2 is potentially a killer.

However, you're correct that string, properly used (i.e. use c_str() sparingly and only when really needed), seems to meet the OP's requirements.

Hum, no, c_str() always returns the full data held by the string class, including embedded nulls. So wildfrog's code is perfectly fine.

const charT* c_str() const;
Returns: A pointer to the initial element of an array of length size() + 1 whose first size() elements equal the corresponding elements of the string controlled by *this and whose last element is a null character specified by charT().

[Graham]

Ah, OK, I missed that bit. Still not guaranteed to be the same memory area as used by the string, though, so the rest applies.