Synopsis

Do not pass a non-null-terminated character sequence to a library function that expects a string.

Enabled by default

Yes

Severity/Certainty

High/Medium

Full description

Many library functions accept a string or wide string argument with the constraint that the string they receive is properly null-terminated. Passing a character sequence or wide character sequence that is not null-terminated to such a function can result in accessing memory that is outside the bounds of the object. Do not pass a character sequence or wide character sequence that is not null-terminated to a library function that expects a string or wide string argument.

Coding standards

Code examples

The following code example fails the check and will give a warning:

#include <stdio.h>

void func(void) {
  char c_str[3] = "abc";
  printf("%s\n", c_str);
}

The following code example passes the check and will not give a warning about this issue:

#include <stdio.h>

void func(void) {
  char c_str[] = "abc";
  printf("%s\n", c_str);
}