Interesting Error

I was writing a small program just to mess around and suddenly I got an error that

Run-Time Check Failure #2 - Stack around the variable 'letter' was corrupted.

I was wondering what causes them, and kinda what do they indicate?

Here is the entire offending code...

Code:

#include "stdafx.h"
#include <iostream>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <time.h>
#include <sstream>

using namespace std;

int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[])
{
	stringstream st;
	srand( (unsigned)time(NULL) );
	for( int i = 0; i < 256; i++ )
	{
		int num = rand() % 65;
		num += 65;
		char letter;
		itoa( num, &letter, 10 );
		st << letter;
	}
	string theString = st.str();

	cout << theString << endl;
	return 0;
}

Perhaps I am just tired(which I am) but I see nothing wrong with it. If anyone could enlighten me, perhaps you can help my tired eyes see what I am doing wrong. Thanks.

what compiler are you using? I used VC++ 6.0, changed _tmain to main and TCHAR to char. Your program ran without error on XP.

Edit: I could swear this was on the C board. I believe itoa was incorrectly used. It takes a numerical value and stores it as a string into a buffer you give it, which you only passed a reference to a char as.

Simple solution: no need for itoa

Code:

#include <iostream>
#include <cstdlib>
#include <ctime>
#include <sstream>
using namespace std;

int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
	stringstream st;
	srand( (unsigned)time(NULL) );
	for( int i = 0; i < 256; i++ )
	{
		char letter = (rand() % 65) + 65;
		st << letter;
	}
	string theString = st.str();

	cout << theString << endl;
	return 0;
}

Hmm thats right, forgot you could create a letter with a number it converts automatically.

As for compiler using VC .net 2003.

Still wondering exactly what that error means and how it happens, but thanks tonto, much easier!

Originally Posted by dpro

Hmm thats right, forgot you could create a letter with a number it converts automatically.

As for compiler using VC .net 2003.

Still wondering exactly what that error means and how it happens, but thanks tonto, much easier!

as tonto pointed out, the function was expecting a null-terminated string, and you were passing it a pointer to a single char. So at runtime, the function couldn't find the end of the string causing undefined behavior. I guess VC++ 6.0 is more forgiving and doesn't catch many errors.

Originally Posted by Ancient Dragon

as tonto pointed out, the function was expecting a null-terminated string, and you were passing it a pointer to a single char. So at runtime, the function couldn't find the end of the string causing undefined behavior. I guess VC++ 6.0 is more forgiving and doesn't catch many errors.

Oh, duh! Sorry, was totally missing the point, I see you are right, thanks for pointing me in the right direction!