Difference in MSVC 6 & MS VC .Net

Hi friends,

For the following piece code, there is no warning in MSVC 6 but MS VC++ .Net compiler issues the following warning:
"warning C4267: '=' : conversion from 'size_t' to 'int', possible loss of data"

Can someone please explain the reason for this warning.

Thanks!

Code:

---


#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

int main(void)
{
    int len;
    char s[] = "Hello World";

    len = strlen(s);
    printf("The length of the string \"%s\" is %d",s,len);


    printf("\n\n");
    return 0;
}

---

I'm guessing here and could be completely wrong, but here goes:

I believe size_t is typedef-ed as an unsigned integer (at least on my platform, Red Hat Linux). This makes sense because you're not going to have a negative size.

strlen returns a size_t.

If we assume the same on the Windows platform, the compiler is telling you that the statement

len = strlen(s);

is implicitly converting a size_t (unsigned int) into a signed int.

If the value of strlen is large enough, it could overflow and len could actually end up as a negative number -- certainly not what is intended.

Define len as a size_t and you should be all set.

The difference in compiler warnings is probably due to the .Net compiler being newer (I think) and more strict (again, I think).

Hope I haven't fouled this up too much! :)