Comment by jchw
2 years ago
While this is true, passing a string to a C function that is manipulating the string would defeat the point of not using C string manipulation.
2 years ago
While this is true, passing a string to a C function that is manipulating the string would defeat the point of not using C string manipulation.
You may not know the function is doing C string manipulation, since const correctness in APIs is not a 100% thing.
If it's just incidental mutation that is a concern, rather than intentionally mutating C strings, no problem: it is common-place to defensively clone strings and other memory when passing them to untrusted interfaces. In fact, if this is your fear, you have literally no alternative but to do so, even when programming directly in C.
Then again, if there's no contract for who owns or mutates a given piece of memory, there's no safe way to use said API from any language or environment and you should probably stop using it. Failing that, you'd just have to check the source code and find out what it actually does and hope that it does not change later.
(Of course, this has no bearing on whether or not you should use C strings or C string manipulation: You shouldn't, even if you're touching unsafe APIs. It's extremely error prone at best, and also pretty inefficient in a lot of cases.)
@jchw I don't see anything you write as disagreeable. But clearly you have a strong handle on what needs taken care of.
Turtles all the way down isn't it? At some point, someone has to take responsibility.
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