c++ - std::string.resize() and std::string.length()

Question

I'm relatively new to C++ and I'm still getting to grips with the C++ Standard Library. To help transition from C, I want to format a std::string using printf-style formatters. I realise stringstream is a more type-safe approach, but I find myself finding printf-style much easier to read and deal with (at least, for the time being). This is my function:

using namespace std;

string formatStdString(const string &format, ...)
{
    va_list va;
    string output;
    size_t needed;
    size_t used;

    va_start(va, format);
    needed = vsnprintf(&output[0], 0, format.c_str(), va);
    output.resize(needed + 1); // for null terminator??
    va_end(va);    

    va_start(va, format);
    used = vsnprintf(&output[0], output.capacity(), format.c_str(), va);
    // assert(used == needed);
    va_end(va);

    return output;
}

This works, kinda. A few things that I am not sure about are:

1. Do I need to make room for a null terminator, or is this unnecessary?
2. Is capacity() the right function to call here? I keep thinking length() would return 0 since the first character in the string is a ''.

Occasionally while writing this string's contents to a socket (using its c_str() and length()), I have null bytes popping up on the receiving end, which is causing a bit of grief, but they seem to appear inconsistently. If I don't use this function at all, no null bytes appear.

Answer 1

With the current standard (the upcomming standard differs here) there is no guarantee that the internal memory buffer managed by the std::string will be contiguous, or that the .c_str() method returns a pointer to the internal data representation (the implementation is allowed to generate a contiguous read-only block for that operation and return a pointer into it. A pointer to the actual internal data can be retrieved with the .data() member method, but note that it also returns a constant pointer: i.e. it is not intended for you to modify the contents. The buffer return by .data() it is not necessarily null terminated, the implementation only needs to guarantee the null termination when c_str() is called, so even in implementations where .data() and .c_str() are called, the implementation can add the to the end of the buffer when the latter is called.

The standard intended to allow rope implementations, so in principle it is unsafe to do what you are trying, and from the point of view of the standard you should use an intermediate std::vector (guaranteed contiguity, and there is a guarantee that &myvector[0] is a pointer to the first allocated block of the real buffer).

In all implementations I know of, the internal memory handled by std::string is actually a contiguous buffer and using .data() is undefined behavior (writting to a constant variable) but even if incorrect it might work (I would avoid it). You should use other libraries that are designed for this purpose, like boost::format.

About the null termination. If you finally decide to follow the path of the undefined... you would need to allocate extra space for the null terminator, since the library will write it into the buffer. Now, the problem is that unlike C-style strings, std::strings can hold null pointers internally, so you will have to resize the string down to fit the largest contiguous block of memory from the beginning that contains no . That is probably the issue you are finding with spurious null characters. This means that the bad approach of using vsnprintf(or the family) has to be followed by str.resize( strlen( str.c_str() ) ) to discard all contents of the string after the first .

Overall, I would advice against this approach, and insist in either getting used to the C++ way of formatting, using third party libraries (boost is third party, but it is also the most standard non-standard library), using vectors or managing memory like in C... but that last option should be avoided like the plague.

// A safe way in C++ of using vsnprintf:
std::vector<char> tmp( 1000 ); // expected maximum size
vsnprintf( &tmp[0], tmp.size(), "Hi %s", name.c_str() ); // assuming name to be a string
std::string salute( &tmp[0] );