[Solved] K&R, find longest line, same code but not working?

Question

Okay, here’s the error:

s[i++] = '\0'; // always put a '\0' character to a string array ending, so that the compiler knows it's a string.

This will cause it to terminate the string even for no input (when it got EOF directly), and since it increments i before returning it, getLine() will never return 0 and thus main() will never stop. Removing the ++ fixed it, for my simple test.

Also, the comment is misleading, the compiler doesn’t know anything. The compiler is no longer around when the code runs; the in-memory format of strings is something that’s needed to keep the run-time libraries happy since that’s what they expect.

Accepted Answer

Okay, here’s the error:

s[i++] = '\0'; // always put a '\0' character to a string array ending, so that the compiler knows it's a string.

This will cause it to terminate the string even for no input (when it got EOF directly), and since it increments i before returning it, getLine() will never return 0 and thus main() will never stop. Removing the ++ fixed it, for my simple test.

Also, the comment is misleading, the compiler doesn’t know anything. The compiler is no longer around when the code runs; the in-memory format of strings is something that’s needed to keep the run-time libraries happy since that’s what they expect.