Character arrays

The codes stored in the characters are compared as unsigned integer values, that is, a normal sequential comparison of the codes occurs. Such a comparison is made in C using standard functions strcmp , which compares character arrays as strings, or using memcpy , which compares character arrays as a set of bytes.

If character arrays are compared as strings, then if all common characters of both strings match, then the smaller string is one that is shorter.

Here is a C demo.

 #include <stdio.h> #include <string.h> int main(void) { char A[] = "A"; char a[] = "a"; char B[] = "B"; char AA[] = "AA"; printf( "%s\n", strcmp( A, B ) < 0 ? "true" : "false" ); printf( "%s\n", strcmp( A, a ) < 0 ? "true" : "false" ); printf( "%s\n", strcmp( B, a ) < 0 ? "true" : "false" ); printf( "%s\n", strcmp( A, AA ) < 0 ? "true" : "false" ); return 0; } 

Its output to the console

 true true true true 

And a similar C ++ program

 #include <iostream> #include <iomanip> #include <cstring> int main() { char A[] = "A"; char a[] = "a"; char B[] = "B"; char AA[] = "AA"; std::cout << std::boolalpha << ( std::strcmp( A, B ) < 0 ) << std::endl; std::cout << std::boolalpha << ( std::strcmp( A, a ) < 0 ) << std::endl; std::cout << std::boolalpha << ( std::strcmp( B, a ) < 0 ) << std::endl; std::cout << std::boolalpha << ( std::strcmp( A, AA ) < 0 ) << std::endl; return 0; } 

Its output to the console

 true true true true 

that is, for example, 'A' less than 'a' , since the code 'A' less than the code 'a' in the ASCII. (например, в EBCDIC code table ASCII. (например, в EBCDIC ASCII. (например, в EBCDIC will have the opposite result), and the string "A" is less than the string "AA", since the first line is shorter than the second line, although the codes of all its characters (in this case, one character) coincide with the corresponding codes of the second line.