[Solved] What are the repercussions of not using null termination in strings?

Question

What are the repercussions of not using null termination in strings?

Technically none, because C strings are – by definition – terminated by a null character:

A string is a contiguous sequence of characters terminated by and including the first null character.

So if it’s not properly terminated, it’s not a string.

If you pass a non-string to code that expects a string, you will invoke undefined behavior.

Accepted Answer

What are the repercussions of not using null termination in strings?

Technically none, because C strings are – by definition – terminated by a null character:

A string is a contiguous sequence of characters terminated by and including the first null character.

So if it’s not properly terminated, it’s not a string.

If you pass a non-string to code that expects a string, you will invoke undefined behavior.