How many chars can be in a char array? - c

Question

#define HUGE_NUMBER ???
char string[HUGE_NUMBER];
do_something_with_the_string(string);
I was wondering what would be the maximum number that I could add to a char array without risking any potential memory problems, buffer overflows or the like. I wanted to get user input into it, and possibly the maximum possible.

Answer 1

See this response by Jack Klein (see original post):
The original C standard (ANSI 1989/ISO
1990) required that a compiler
successfully translate at least one
program containing at least one
example of a set of environmental
limits. One of those limits was being
able to create an object of at least
32,767 bytes.
This minimum limit was raised in the
1999 update to the C standard to be at
least 65,535 bytes.
No C implementation is required to
provide for objects greater than that
size, which means that they don't need
to allow for an array of ints greater
than (int)(65535 / sizeof(int)).
In very practical terms, on modern
computers, it is not possible to say
in advance how large an array can be
created. It can depend on things like
the amount of physical memory
installed in the computer, the amount
of virtual memory provided by the OS,
the number of other tasks, drivers,
and programs already running and how
much memory that are using. So your
program may be able to use more or
less memory running today than it
could use yesterday or it will be able
to use tomorrow.
Many platforms place their strictest
limits on automatic objects, that is
those defined inside of a function
without the use of the 'static'
keyword. On some platforms you can
create larger arrays if they are
static or by dynamic allocation.
Now, to provide a slightly more tailored answer, DO NOT DECLARE HUGE ARRAYS TO AVOID BUFFER OVERFLOWS. That's close to the worst practice one can think of in C. Rather, spend some time writing good code, and carefully make sure that no buffer overflow will occur. Also, if you do not know the size of your array in advance, look at malloc, it might come in handy :P

Answer 2

It depends on where char string[HUGE_NUMBER]; is placed.
Is it inside a function? Then the array will be on the stack, and if and how fast your OS can grow stacks depends on the OS. So here is the general rule: dont place huge arrays on the stack.
Is it ouside a function then it is global (process-memory), if the OS cannot allocate that much memory when it tries to load your program, your program will crash and your program will have no chance to notice that (so the following is better:)
Large arrays should be malloc'ed. With malloc, the OS will return a null-pointer if the malloc failed, depending on the OS and its paging-scheme and memory-mapping-scheme this will either fail when 1) there is no continuous region of free memory large enough for the array or 2) the OS cannot map enough regions of free physical memory to memory that appears to your process as continous memory.
So, with large arrays do this:
char* largeArray = malloc(HUGE_NUMBER);
if(!largeArray) { do error recovery and display msg to user }

Answer 3

Declaring arbitrarily huge arrays to avoid buffer overflows is bad practice. If you really don't know in advance how large a buffer needs to be, use malloc or realloc to dynamically allocate and extend the buffer as necessary, possibly using a smaller, fixed-sized buffer as an intermediary.
Example:
#define PAGE_SIZE 1024 // 1K buffer; you can make this larger or smaller
/**
* Read up to the next newline character from the specified stream.
* Dynamically allocate and extend a buffer as necessary to hold
* the line contents.
*
* The final size of the generated buffer is written to bufferSize.
*
* Returns NULL if the buffer cannot be allocated or if extending it
* fails.
*/
char *getNextLine(FILE *stream, size_t *bufferSize)
{
char input[PAGE_SIZE]; // allocate
int done = 0;
char *targetBuffer = NULL;
*bufferSize = 0;
while (!done)
{
if(fgets(input, sizeof input, stream) != NULL)
{
char *tmp;
char *newline = strchr(input, '\n');
if (newline != NULL)
{
done = 1;
*newline = 0;
}
tmp = realloc(targetBuffer, sizeof *tmp * (*bufferSize + strlen(input)));
if (tmp)
{
targetBuffer = tmp;
*bufferSize += strlen(input);
strcat(targetBuffer, input);
}
else
{
free(targetBuffer);
targetBuffer = NULL;
*bufferSize = 0;
fprintf(stderr, "Unable to allocate or extend input buffer\n");
}
}
}

Answer 4

If the array is going to be allocated on the stack, then you are limited by the stack size (typically 1MB on Windows, some of it will be used so you have even less). Otherwise I imagine the limit would be quite large.
However, making the array really big is not a solution to buffer overflow issues. Don't do it. Use functions that have a mechanism for limiting the amount of buffer they use to make sure you don't overstep your buffer, and make the size something more reasonable (1K for example).

Answer 5

You can use malloc() to get larger portions of memory than normally an array could handle.

Answer 6

Well, a buffer overflow wouldn't be caused by too large a value for HUGE_NUMBER so much as too small compared to what was written to it (write to index HUGE_NUMBER or higher, and you've overflown the buffer).
Aside from that it will depend upon the machine. There are certainly systems that could handle several millions in the heap, and a million or so on the stack (depending on other pressures), but there are also certainly some that couldn't handle more than a few hundred (small embedded devices would be an obvious example). While 65,535 is a standard-specified minimum, a really small device could specify that the standard was deliberately departed from for this reason.
In real terms, on a large machine, long before you actually run out of memory, you are needlessly putting pressure on the memory in a way that would affect performance. You would be better off dynamically sizing an array to an appropriate size.