Re: Common way of explaining null-terminated strings

Hi Jon,

On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 10:26 PM, Jon Grant [off-list ref] wrote:

Hi Michael

I noticed there are a few different ways of explaining the null-terminating
'\0' character.

Yes. There is some inconsistency.

Just thinking if this could be standardised, and the same
description of this used across all the string functions (and wide string):

A good idea.

e.g.:

http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/online/pages/man3/strnlen.3.html

"terminating '\0' character"

and also:

"if there is no '\0' character"


My opinion would be that the phrase "null terminator '\0'" could be used for
the first mention, and then later references could just say "if there is no
null terminator".

To give an example of a page with a different way of explaining:

http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/online/pages/man3/strncat.3.html

"plus the terminating null byte"

http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/online/pages/man3/strcpy.3.html
"including the terminating null byte ('\0')"

"If there is no null byte"

Perhaps this could even be worth adding to the overview section:
http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/online/dir_section_7.html

The preferred terms (more or less following POSIX) are

"terminating null byte" (and terminating null wide character")
and
"null-terminated string"

I've made a pass through the pages, bringing more consistency.
Ideally, the first instance of "terminating null byte" on most pages
also now includes mention of '\0'.

Take a look through git (or man-pages-3.35 when it comes out).

Cheers,

Michael

-- 
Michael Kerrisk
Linux man-pages maintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
Author of "The Linux Programming Interface"; http://man7.org/tlpi/
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