CODEWITHSUNDEEP
cstringmemoryprintfvariable-assignment
prabodhprakash
prabodhprakash

Reputation: 3927

Assign string to int in C

I have this code below:

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {
    int i = "hello world";

    printf("%d", i);

    return 0;
}

why assigning a string to int variable not giving me a compilation error, but prints a garbage value.

Edit 1:

A lot of answers suggested to not ignore the warning. I wrote this code on ideone, which unfortunately, did not give me any warning.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1344

Answers (2)

RobertS supports Monica Cellio
RobertS supports Monica Cellio

Reputation: 15062

int i = "hello world";

With that you assigning the address of the string literal "hello world" in memory to the int object i, which is in most cases undefined behavior because the value of a memory location is in many cases beyond the area an object of type int can hold.

This undefined value is then printed by:

 printf("%d", i);

Nonetheless the compiler should give you a warning when doing that without an explicit cast, f.e. as I compiled your code by gcc it gave:

warning: initialization of 'int' from 'char *' makes integer from pointer without a cast [-Wint-conversion]

Do never ignore compiler warnings.

Upvotes: 1

Nolen White
Nolen White

Reputation: 41

I believe it would perform a pointer to int conversion. It should be a warning indicating the conversion without cast.

Upvotes: 2

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