I am currently writing a C++ program on Xcode. The following is a snippet of the code I am running:
char myString[3];
cin >> myString;
cout << myString << endl;
The code is very straightforward. However, when I enter strings longer than 2 characters, the string still accepts them. Why doesn't the string only store two characters plus the null terminator?
Thanks!
Because it can't. When you pass an array into a function (operator>> counts!) by value, you're really just passing a pointer to the array. A char* doesn't know the size of the buffer it points to.
In theory the standard library could have been designed so that it had a function template taking a reference to the array, like:
template <size_t N>
operator>>(char (&input)[N]);
But, well, it just doesn't. You could propose its addition to the C++ standards committee.
Anyway, there's no need for formatted extraction here. Prefer something like:
cin.read(&myString[0], sizeof(myString)-1);
…or use an actual string.
const where I shouldn't've.