Casting an int to a char. Not storing the correct value

Question

I'm trying to store a number as a character in a char vector named code

code->at(i) = static_cast<char>(distribution(generator));

However it is not storing the way I think it should

for some shouldn't '\x4' be the ascii value for 4? if not how do I achieve that result?

Here's another vector who's values were entered correctly.

Answer 1

No. \xN does not give you the ASCII code for the character N.

\xN is the ASCII character^† whose code is N (in hexadecimal form).

So, when you write '\x4', you get the [unprintable] character with the ASCII code 4. Upon conversion to an integer, this value is still 4.

If you wanted the ASCII character that looks like 4, you'd write '\x34' because 34 is 4's ASCII code. You could also get there using some magic, based on numbers in ASCII being contiguous and starting from '0':

code->at(i) = '0' + distribution(generator);

^{† Ish.}

Answer 2

You are casting without actually converting the int to a char. You need:

code->at(i) = distribution(generator) + '0';