Why do we need to add a '\0' (null) at the

Question

Why do we need to add a '\0' (null) at the end of a character array in C? I've read it in K&R 2 (1.9 Character Array). The code in the book to find the longest string is as follows :

#include <stdio.h>
#define MAXLINE 1000
int readline(char line[], int maxline);
void copy(char to[], char from[]);

main() {
    int len;
    int max;
    char line[MAXLINE];
    char longest[MAXLINE];
    max = 0;
    while ((len = readline(line, MAXLINE)) > 0)
        if (len > max) {
            max = len;
            copy(longest, line);
        }
    if (max > 0)
        printf("%s", longest);
    return 0;
}

int readline(char s[],int lim) {
    int c, i;
    for (i=0; i < lim-1 && (c=getchar())!=EOF && c!='\n'; ++i)
        s[i] = c;
    if (c == '\n') {
        s[i] = c;
        ++i;
    }
    s[i] = '\0'; //WHY DO WE DO THIS???
    return i;
}

void copy(char to[], char from[]) {
    int i;
    i = 0;
    while ((to[i] = from[i]) != '\0')
        ++i;
}

My Question is why do we set the last element of the character array as '\0'? The program works fine without it... Please help me...

Answer 1

'\0' in the array indicates the end of string, which means any character after this character is not considered part of the string.It doesn’t mean they are not part of the character array. i.e., we can still access these characters by indexing but they are just not part when we invoke string related things to this character array.

For a string to be in proper format and be able to work properly with the string functions, it must be a null-terminated character array. Without NULL, the programs show undefined behavior when we invoke string functions on the character array. Even though we might get lucky with the results most of the times, it still is an undefined behavior.

Answer 2

In c "string" means a null terminated array of characters. Compare this with a pascal string which means at most 255 charactes preceeded by a byte indicating the length of the string (but requiring no termination).

Each appraoch has it's pros and cons.