How big is the argv[] array?

Henry Spencer henry at utzoo.uucp
Wed Oct 5 03:49:59 AEST 1988


In article <1239500004 at osiris.cso.uiuc.edu> hood at osiris.cso.uiuc.edu writes:
>How big is the argv[] array?  Or to ask it another way, how safe is it to
>go past the argc-1'th element in the argv[] array?
>
>Isn't it true that the array of pointers (or pointer to pointers, depending
>on your point of view) "argv" actually contains argc+1 elements, and not
>argc elements?

That is correct.  argv[argc] is guaranteed to exist and be NULL, and thus
argv has argc+1 elements (argc arguments plus the NULL).  Trying to access
argv[argc+1] or higher, however, is not safe.
-- 
The meek can have the Earth;    |    Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
the rest of us have other plans.|uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry at zoo.toronto.edu



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