How would you improve this algorithm? (c string re

Question

Working through some programming interview challenges I found online, I had to write an algorithm to reverse a const char * and return a pointer to a new char *. I think I have it, but to make it work properly I had to do some wonky stuff - basically having to account for the null-terminating character myself. Somehow I feel this is wrong, but I'm stumped, and I was wondering if someone could help me out:

char * reverse(const char * str)
{
  int length = strlen(str);
  char * reversed_string = new char[length+1];

  for(int i = 0; i < length; ++i)
  {
    reversed_string[i] = str[(length-1) - i];
  }
  //need to null terminate the string
  reversed_string[length] = '\0';

  return reversed_string;

}

int main(int argc, char * argv[])
{

  char * rev_str = reverse("Testing");

  cout << "Your string reversed is this: " << rev_str << endl;

  delete rev_str;
  rev_str = 0;

  return 0;
}

Answer 1

You cannot (should not) do this:

string[i] ^= string[length - i] ^= string[i] ^= string[length - i];

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XOR_swap_algorithm#Code_example

• *"This code has undefined behavior, since it modifies the lvalue x twice without an intervening sequence point.

Answer 2

.

char * reverse(const char * str)
{
  if (!str)
    return NULL;

  int length = strlen(str);
  char * reversed_string = new char[length+1];

  for(int i = 0; i < length/2; ++i)
  {
    reversed_string[i] = str[(length-1) - i];
    reversed_string[(length-1) - i] = str[i];
  }
  //need to null terminate the string
  reversed_string[length] = '\0';

  return reversed_string;

}

Half the time but same complexity (note may be off by one error)