pointer test

[ascii]

i wrote a little test to using pointers and arrays to see what the next data slot would be after the last element of a char array, and i expected it to be a string terminator ( \0 ) but instead i got some weird creepy symbol in cmd. heres the code i used:

#include <iostream>
#include <string>

using namespace std;

int main()
{
	char hello[5];
	char * pointer;

	pointer = hello;
	pointer += 6;

	cout << *pointer << endl << endl;
	system("pause");

	return 0;
}

run it for yourself and see what happens. can anyone help explain this?

[firedraco]

That's because you did not intialize your array with anything, so a) it contains garbage, and b) you are actually acessing hello[6], which is 2 chars longer than the array actually is. Remember, hello[0] is the first element.

[ascii]

same thing with this :-(

#include <iostream>
#include <string>

using namespace std;

int main()
{ 
	char hello[5] = {'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e'};
	char * pointer;

	pointer = hello;
	pointer += 5;

	cout << *pointer << endl << endl;
	system("pause");

	return 0;
}

[firedraco]

5 is still one past the array limits, so it will be garbage. Also, when allocating an array that way, it doesn't have null terminators; only string literals do:

char test[5] = {'1', '2', '3', '4', '5'}; //no '\0' at test[4]
char argle[5] = "hi"; //has '\0' at argle[3] 

[ascii]

okay thankya :)