null terminated string lists

[megafiddle]

Is it common practice, or accepted practice, to terminate a list of strings with a null string?

For example,

char *list[] = {"string A", "string B", "string C", ""};

This would be for the purpose of handling the string list without having to use a separate associated value for the list size.

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[laserlight]

There's a precedent in argv, though that approach uses a null pointer rather than an empty string, and also provides for argc anyway. Personally I think the problems with the null character to terminate strings (i.e., often seen as the weak link behind buffer overflow vulnerabilities) provides us a lesson that it tends to be better to maintain the list size rather than to terminate with a special value.

[Tien Nguyen]

Terminating with a certain delimiter has the potential problem of displacing the character for that sole purpose. So you don't have use for that character when you need it anymore. So if you need all your character sets laserlight is right in keeping a tally manually.

[megafiddle]

Ok, thanks.

I think I will combine the ponters to lists and the list size in an array of structs then.

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