Finding size of a character array?

How would I find the size of a dynamically allocated character array? Here is my code so far:

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
void main()
{
char *test = new char[];
int i = 0;

cout << "Type in name!\n";
cin >> test;
for (i; i<sizeof(*test); i++)
{
cout << test[i];
}
}

The sizeof operator doesn't seem to be working..could I use scanf()? Thanks in advance.

-andy

Just like with a non-dynamically created array:

strlen() in the <cstring> header file

Is there any other way without having to add another header file?

EDIT:: NM..STRLEN IS PART OF IOSTREAM ..Thanks stud.

-andy

MSDN says it's in the <string.h> header file which is <cstring> under the new standard, so I don't know why you don't need to include <cstring>, but apparently it works with just <iostream> included.

test is a char pointer, so *test is a char. If you output the value of sizeof(*test), it should be 1.

I know you're using C++, but in both C and C++ the length of a character string is returned by strlen(), whose header file is string.h in both C and C++. However, the value it returns does not include the null-terminator.

The strlen() function only returns the length till the '\0' appears. if you want to know the length of the allocated memory you have to save it in an extra variable. Another solution is to make char array one field larger and inserting a special character at this position. Then you could calculate the size. If the length of your char array is less than 255 you could also save this value in the first character field.

BTW does not allocate any memory for the content of the array. it only allocates a char-array pointer.

Here's some code sample. (Hope the compiler get's it, because it's a long time ago since i've coded c/c++):

>> If the length of your char array is less than 255 you could also save this value in the first character field.

IIRC, this was the way that Turbo Pascal (versions <= 3.0) stored string variables. You couldn't declare strings greater than 255 chars in length. The programmer could access individual characters via string[1], string[2] etc., but the compiler wouldn't let the programmer access string[0], because this was the internal variable. You could access it by using a pointer though, but it wasn't such a good idea to modify it, for obvious reasons .

The problem with using this scheme with C/C++ is that string[0] is accessible by the programmer and can be easily modified. Also, your common string handling functions, such as strcmp(), strcat(), sprintf() etc. would have to be rewritten to skip over the first character. Either that, or you have to pass pointer to the second array element to strcmp(), sprintf() etc., instead of the first element.

>> IIRC, this was the way that Turbo Pascal (versions <= 3.0) stored string variables. You couldn't declare strings greater than 255 chars in length. The programmer could access individual characters via string[1], string[2] etc., but the compiler wouldn't let the programmer access string[0], because this was the internal variable. You could access it by using a pointer though, but it wasn't such a good idea to modify it, for obvious reasons .

Yes, I know. That's were i got the idea from. I thought andy3109 was searching for solutions without using an extra variable. I also thought he is not working with strings (in that case he could also string from the STL).

sizeof is a compiler calculator, it is not a funcrtion.
sizeof(*test) probably == sizeof(char)
strlen(test) is a standard solution
but char* is strange idea
if you do not whant headache use STL string,
or MFC CString.