What's the Real Use of Using N[C-'0']

What's the real use of using n[c-'0']?

In C, '0' is an integer whose value represents the digit zero as a character, not the value 0, which would be the null character. Other answers have omitted this, but it's important to note that the C language mandates that the decimal digits have consecutive values, so that if c is a digit, c-'0' is the numeric value of that digit, i.e.

'0'-'0' = 0
'1'-'0' = 1
'2'-'0' = 2
.
.
.
'9'-'0' = 9

What is the meaning of [*num - '0']?

single_digits[*num - '0']

*num - you get the character referenced by this pointer.

*num - '0' you get the number equal the decimal value of the
character (assuming the char is the digit)

single_digits[*num - '0'] you get the array element with index of the decimal value of the character.

Why does subtracting '0' in C result in the number that the char is representing?

Because the char are all represented by a number and '0' is the first of them all.

On the table below you see that:

'0' => 48
'1' => 49

'9' => 57.

As a result: ('9' - '0') = (57 − 48) = 9

Source: http://www.asciitable.com

C# - What does \0 equate to?

'\0' is a "null character". It's used to terminate strings in C and some portions of C++. Pex is doing a test to see how your code handles the null character, likely looking for the Poison Null Byte security exploit.

Most C# code has nothing to fear; if you pass your string to unmanaged code, however, you may have problems.

Edit:

Just to be explicit... Pex is passing a string containing a null character. This is not a null reference.

Convert a character digit to the corresponding integer in C

As per other replies, this is fine:

char c = '5';
int x = c - '0';

Also, for error checking, you may wish to check isdigit(c) is true first. Note that you cannot completely portably do the same for letters, for example:

char c = 'b';
int x = c - 'a'; // x is now not necessarily 1

The standard guarantees that the char values for the digits '0' to '9' are contiguous, but makes no guarantees for other characters like letters of the alphabet.

What is the difference between NULL, '\0' and 0?

Note: This answer applies to the C language, not C++.

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Null Pointers

The integer constant literal 0 has different meanings depending upon the context in which it's used. In all cases, it is still an integer constant with the value 0, it is just described in different ways.

If a pointer is being compared to the constant literal 0, then this is a check to see if the pointer is a null pointer. This 0 is then referred to as a null pointer constant. The C standard defines that 0 cast to the type void * is both a null pointer and a null pointer constant.

Additionally, to help readability, the macro NULL is provided in the header file stddef.h. Depending upon your compiler it might be possible to #undef NULL and redefine it to something wacky.

Therefore, here are some valid ways to check for a null pointer:

if (pointer == NULL)

NULL is defined to compare equal to a null pointer. It is implementation defined what the actual definition of NULL is, as long as it is a valid null pointer constant.

if (pointer == 0)

0 is another representation of the null pointer constant.

if (!pointer)

This if statement implicitly checks "is not 0", so we reverse that to mean "is 0".

The following are INVALID ways to check for a null pointer:

int mynull = 0;
<some code>
if (pointer == mynull)

To the compiler this is not a check for a null pointer, but an equality check on two variables. This might work if mynull never changes in the code and the compiler optimizations constant fold the 0 into the if statement, but this is not guaranteed and the compiler has to produce at least one diagnostic message (warning or error) according to the C Standard.

Note that the value of a null pointer in the C language does not matter on the underlying architecture. If the underlying architecture has a null pointer value defined as address 0xDEADBEEF, then it is up to the compiler to sort this mess out.

As such, even on this funny architecture, the following ways are still valid ways to check for a null pointer:

if (!pointer)
if (pointer == NULL)
if (pointer == 0)

The following are INVALID ways to check for a null pointer:

#define MYNULL (void *) 0xDEADBEEF
if (pointer == MYNULL)
if (pointer == 0xDEADBEEF)

as these are seen by a compiler as normal comparisons.

Null Characters

'\0' is defined to be a null character - that is a character with all bits set to zero. '\0' is (like all character literals) an integer constant, in this case with the value zero. So '\0' is completely equivalent to an unadorned 0 integer constant - the only difference is in the intent that it conveys to a human reader ("I'm using this as a null character.").

'\0' has nothing to do with pointers. However, you may see something similar to this code:

if (!*char_pointer)

checks if the char pointer is pointing at a null character.

if (*char_pointer)

checks if the char pointer is pointing at a non-null character.

Don't get these confused with null pointers. Just because the bit representation is the same, and this allows for some convenient cross over cases, they are not really the same thing.

References

See Question 5.3 of the comp.lang.c FAQ for more.
See this pdf for the C standard. Check out sections 6.3.2.3 Pointers, paragraph 3.

What does %s mean in a Python format string?

It is a string formatting syntax (which it borrows from C).

Please see "PyFormat":

Python supports formatting values into
strings. Although this can include
very complicated expressions, the most
basic usage is to insert values into a
string with the %s placeholder.

Here is a really simple example:

#Python 2
name = raw_input("who are you? ")
print "hello %s" % (name,)

#Python 3+
name = input("who are you? ")
print("hello %s" % (name,))

The %s token allows me to insert (and potentially format) a string. Notice that the %s token is replaced by whatever I pass to the string after the % symbol. Notice also that I am using a tuple here as well (when you only have one string using a tuple is optional) to illustrate that multiple strings can be inserted and formatted in one statement.

What causes a java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException and how do I prevent it?

Your first port of call should be the documentation which explains it reasonably clearly:

Thrown to indicate that an array has been accessed with an illegal index. The index is either negative or greater than or equal to the size of the array.

So for example:

int[] array = new int[5];
int boom = array[10]; // Throws the exception

As for how to avoid it... um, don't do that. Be careful with your array indexes.

One problem people sometimes run into is thinking that arrays are 1-indexed, e.g.

int[] array = new int[5];
// ... populate the array here ...
for (int index = 1; index <= array.length; index++)
{
    System.out.println(array[index]);
}

That will miss out the first element (index 0) and throw an exception when index is 5. The valid indexes here are 0-4 inclusive. The correct, idiomatic for statement here would be:

for (int index = 0; index < array.length; index++)

(That's assuming you need the index, of course. If you can use the enhanced for loop instead, do so.)

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