Initialisation of char array to string value, are the uninitialised indices set to null?

Question

If I have the following:

char test[10] = "#";

Is test[1] through test[9] guaranteed to be \0? Or is only test[1] guaranteed to be \0?

Vlad from Moscow · Accepted Answer · 2024-04-25 03:27:10Z

39

This definition

char test[10] = "#";

is equivalent to

char test[10] = { '#', '\0' };

That is two elements of the array are initialized explicitly by the initializers. All other elements of the array will be zero initialized that is implicitly they will be set to '\0'

According to the C++ Standard (section 8.5.2 Character arrays)

3 If there are fewer initializers than there are array elements, each element not explicitly initialized shall be zero-initialized (8.5).

edited Apr 25, 2024 at 3:27

answered Aug 18, 2014 at 11:23

Vlad from Moscow

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1 Comment

Mark Ingram Over a year ago

Thanks, do you have the line from the specification that states this?

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