Re: on memset

From:
"Alf P. Steinbach" <alfps@start.no>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:37:59 +0200
Message-ID:
<hMOdnUZq75SEeJjVnZ2dnUVZ_gCdnZ2d@comnet>
* Vincent SHAO:

On 4?16?, ??2?06?, "Alf P. Steinbach" <al...@start.no> wrote:

*VincentSHAO:

int distance[MAX_X][MAX_Y];
memset(distance,-2,MAX_X*MAX_Y*sizeof(int));
Academically, the buffer "distance" should have been filled with -2
after these two line,

No.

but, memset just fail to do the trick, they are still a garbage value
"-16843010"
why?

It seems your compiler creates program that use 32 bit two's complement 'int'.

In that case -2 is represented as bit pattern 0xFFFFFFFE, and as signed char
value, 0xFE, and filling an 'int' with byte value 0xFE gives you 0xFEFEFEFE,
which represents -16843010.

See the FAQ for more safe ways to represent matrices (or go directly to Boost
library).

Cheers, & hth.,

- Alf


Thanks a lot.
And that is to say, i have to use double 'for' to init the buffer if i
want each elem in the buffer to be -2?


No.

The standard library has standard algorithms and even standard containers.

Perhaps the most straightforward (but see earlier advice) is

   #include <vector>
   int main()
   {
       using namespace std;
       int const maxX = 2;
       int const maxY = 3;
       vector< vector<int> > distance( maxX, vector<int>( maxY, -2 ) );
       // ...
       distance[1][2] = 12345;
   }

Cheers, & hth.,

- Alf

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