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    CWG Issue 931</TITLE>
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<P><EM>This is an unofficial snapshot of the ISO/IEC JTC1 SC22 WG21
  Core Issues List revision 118b.
  See http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/ for the official
  list.</EM></P>
<P>2025-09-28</P>
<HR>
<A NAME="931"></A><H4>931.
  
Confusing reference to the length of a user-defined string literal
</H4>
<B>Section: </B>5.13.9&#160; [<A href="https://wg21.link/lex.ext">lex.ext</A>]
 &#160;&#160;&#160;

 <B>Status: </B>CD2
 &#160;&#160;&#160;

 <B>Submitter: </B>Alisdair Meredith
 &#160;&#160;&#160;

 <B>Date: </B>6 July, 2009<BR>


<P>[Voted into WP at March, 2010 meeting.]</P>



<P>5.13.9 [<A href="https://wg21.link/lex.ext#5">lex.ext</A>] paragraph 5 says,</P>

<BLOCKQUOTE>

If <I>L</I> is a <I>user-defined-string-literal</I>, let <I>str</I> be
the literal without its <I>ud-suffix</I> and let <I>len</I> be the
number of characters (or code points) in <I>str</I> (i.e., its length
excluding the terminating null character).

</BLOCKQUOTE>

<P>The length of a null-terminated string is defined in 16.3.3.3.4.2 [<A href="https://wg21.link/byte.strings">byte.strings</A>] as the number of bytes preceding the terminator,
but a single code point in a UTF-8 string can require more than one
byte, so this sentence is inconsistent and needs to be revised to make
clear which definition is in view.</P>

<P><B>Proposed resolution (October, 2009):</B></P>

<P>Change 5.13.9 [<A href="https://wg21.link/lex.ext#5">lex.ext</A>] paragraph 5 as follows:</P>

<BLOCKQUOTE>

If <I>L</I> is a <I>user-defined-string-literal</I>, let <I>str</I> be
the literal without its <I>ud-suffix</I> and let <I>len</I> be the
number of <DEL>characters (or code points)</DEL> <INS>code units</INS>
in <I>str</I> (i.e., its length excluding the terminating null
character)...

</BLOCKQUOTE>

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