Question

Say we have this piece of C code:

int x[] = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5};

printf("%d", *(x + 1)); //prints 2
printf("%d", *(x + 500)); //prints 7209065 (...?)

As you can see from the second call, it still returns something…but it’s garbage.

So I ask, how do you handle such a case in C? ie, how do you know if the returned element is really an element that exists in the array or just garbage ?

Answer 1

Add another variable that holds the length of the array, and whenever you want to access the array make sure you are within the bounds of the array.