It's not really suitable for general purpose programming like the OP is doing. It won't null terminate the string if the buffer is filled, which will cause you all sorts of problems. If the buffer is not filled, it will write extra null bytes to fill the buffer (not a problem, but unnecessary).
On freebsd you have strlcpy(), Windows has strcpy_s() which will do what the OP needs. I remember someone trying to import strlcpy() into Linux, but Ulrich Drepper had a fit and said no.
You just never assume a string is null terminated when reading, using strnlen or strncpy when reading as well.
Not really possible when dealing with operating system level APIs that expect and require null-terminated strings. It's safer and less error-prone to keep everything null terminated at all times.
Or just write in C++ and use std::string, or literally any other language. C is terrible when it comes to text strings.
I am not writing in C, but always wondered, why pascal-like strings wrappers are not popular, i. e. when you have first 2 bytes represent the length of the string following by \0 terminated string for compatibility.
2 bytes is not enough, usually you'll see whole "size_t" worth of bytes for the length.
But you could do something utf-8 inspired I suppose where some bit pattern in the first byte of the length tells you how many bytes are actually used for the length.
>It won't null terminate the string if the buffer is filled, which will cause you all sorts of problems.
if you don't know how to solve/avoid a problem like that, you will have all sorts of other problems
pound-define strncopy to a compile fail, write the function you want instead, correct all the compile errors, and then, not only move on with your life, never speak of it again, for that is the waste of time. C++ std:string is trash, java strings are trash, duplicate what you want from those in your C string library and sail ahead. no language has better defined behaviors than C, that's why so many other languages, interpreters, etc. have been implemented in C.
> Everything in C is just array of bytes, some would argue uint32_t is just array of 4 bytes
That isn't how the C language is defined. The alignment rules may differ between those two types. Consider also the need for the union trick to portably implement type-punning in C. Also, the C standard permits for CHAR_BIT to equal 32, so in C's understanding of a 'byte', the uint32_t type might in principle correspond to just a single byte, in some exotic (but C compliant) platform.
The padding is needed to make packets hashable and not leak uninitialized bytes.
You just never assume a string is null terminated when reading, using strnlen or strncpy when reading as well.