Zeroing out a string

You can call memset to zero out a string (or any other memory block).

Where str is the string to zero out, and n is the number of bytes in the string.

#include <stdlib.h> /* For EXIT_SUCCESS */
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

int main(void)
{
  char str[42] = "fortytwo";
  size_t n = sizeof str; /* Take the size not the length. */

  printf("'%s'\n", str);

  memset(str, '\0', n);

  printf("'%s'\n", str);

  return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

Prints:

'fortytwo'
''

Another example:

#include <stdlib.h> /* For EXIT_SUCCESS */
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

#define FORTY_STR "forty"
#define TWO_STR "two"

int main(void)
{
  char str[42] = FORTY_STR TWO_STR;
  size_t n = sizeof str; /* Take the size not the length. */
  char * point_to_two = strstr(str, TWO_STR);

  printf("'%s'\n", str);

  memset(point_to_two, '\0', n);

  printf("'%s'\n", str);

  memset(str, '\0', n);

  printf("'%s'\n", str);

  return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

Prints:

'fortytwo'
'forty'
''

Found a mistake? Have a question or improvement idea? Let me know.

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