C++, Additional characters in string declaration

Question

I use Visual Studio 2015. There is a simple code

char blablabla[] = "‭ABCDEFGH";

int main()
{
    int a = sizeof(blablabla);
    return 0;
}

Debugger shows that blablabla has "?ABCDEFGH" and a is 10. What does this question mark doing here?

Ron · Accepted Answer · 2017-07-20 09:09:21Z

3

You have an unicode character of \u202D in your array that can not be represented in the current code page. Hence the displayed ? character.

answered Jul 20, 2017 at 9:09

Ron

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6 Comments

I have opened the main.cpp with hex editor. It is not in UNICODE but it has some weird symbols in before the A letter.

"â€ABCDEFGH" this is how string looks in the hex editor

@zulunation so it seems you've found the answer.

But what a hell this symbol is doing in the string declaration?

@zulunation you probably didn't type that text but you copy/pasted it from somewhere, and that u202d comes from there for whatever reason.

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