Counting number of strings in an array

Hey there!

I have an array of strings where I declare all strings like this:

Code:

---

string[2] = "\xFB\x9D";

---

to represent 2 chars in one variable. All tend to be only 2 bytes long.

Code:

---

char a[2] = "\xFB\x01";
char b[2] = "\xFF\x01";
char c[2] = "\xD1\xF5";
...

char *pitems[] = {a, c, f, z};

---

What would be the safest&easiest way to count the number of strings in this array? Because they are not \0-terminated I can't use strlen().

Thanks in advance,
Hawk

If you do not pass the array to a function, but are in the block where it is defined:

Code:

---

sizeof(pitems)/sizeof(pitems[0])

---

If you do pass the array to a function, you're just out of luck.

Well actually this

Code:

---

char *pitems[] = {a, c, f, z};

---

is declaring an array of char pointers, so you can easily add a NULL pointer at the end and use that to know hoiw many of them there are in any function this is passed to. E.g:

Code:

---

char *pitems[] = {a, c, f, z, NULL};
foo(pItems);

//...

void foo(char** pItem)
{
    while (pItem != NULL)
    {
        bar(*pItem);
    }
}

---

Thank you for the input. I (finally) added both methods to my program to find them if I need them in another program also. Yet I don't know why sizeof(pitems)/sizeof(pitems[0]) wouldn't work if I passed the array to another function.

Since arrays sizes degrade to pointers when they're passed to a function, the sizeof(arrayName) becomes just the size of the pointer to that data type (int, char, whatever).