Pascal Strings

**Frost Drake** · 01-12-2006

Hello, I'm creating a string class similar to the format of pascal string or so I heard, the type where the string would not exceed 255 characters. I'm having a bit of problem getting it to the output, how do I pass the entire array, not including the character count at [0] to ostream?

Code:

class PascalString {
private:
  unsigned char* data;
  
  void copyString(const char* cstr) {
    int num_char = std::strlen(cstr);
    if(num_char > UCHAR_MAX) {
      return; // or abort() where is abort() or exit() in? stdlib.h?
    }
    data = new unsigned char[num_char+1];
    data[0] = num_char;
    unsigned char* copier = data[1];
    for(int i = 0; i < num_char; ++i) {
      *copier = cstr[i];
      ++copier;
    }
    return;
  }
public:
  PascalString() {
    data = 0;
  }
  
  PascalString(const char* s) {
    copyString(s);
  }
  
  friend std::ostream& operator<<(std::ostream& out, const PascalString& ps);
};

std::ostream& operator<<(std::ostream& out, const PascalString& ps) {
}

**swoopy** · 01-12-2006

>how do I pass the entire array, not including the character count at [0] to ostream?

Code:

std::ostream& operator<<(std::ostream& out, const PascalString& ps) {
   for (unsigned int i=1; i<=ps.data[0]; ++i)
      std::cout << ps.data[i];
}

Or you could store a null terminator at the end of the array and do it like this:

Code:

std::ostream& operator<<(std::ostream& out, const PascalString& ps) {
   std::cout << ps.data+1;
}

**Frost Drake** · 01-12-2006

I want to return a reference to ostream, is there no other way?

**Rashakil Fol** · 01-13-2006

Here is a fixed version of swoopy's first example. (Added return statement and switched std::cout/out.)

Code:

std::ostream& operator<<(std::ostream& out, const PascalString& ps) {
   for (unsigned int i=1; i<=ps.data[0]; ++i)
      out << ps.data[i];

   return out;
}

Originally Posted by Frost Drake

I want to return a reference to ostream, is there no other way?

I think you meant "I want to return a reference to an ostream," or "I want to return a reference to 'out'." (Just making sure you're thinking correctly.)

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