C Strings and my slow descent to madness(deusinmachina.net)

    struct string {
      size_t length;
      char data[];
    };

    struct string {
      size_t length;
      size_t alloc;
      char *data;
    };

    my_function(my_var, 3.6, "bzarflo", my_other_var, false);

   #include <string.h>
   #include <stdint.h>
   #include <limits.h>
   
   #define ALIGN (sizeof(size_t))
   #define ONES ((size_t)-1/UCHAR_MAX)
   #define HIGHS (ONES * (UCHAR_MAX/2+1))
   #define HASZERO(x) ((x)-ONES & ~(x) & HIGHS)
   
   size_t strlen(const char *s)
   {
   const char *a = s;
   #ifdef __GNUC__
   typedef size_t __attribute__((__may_alias__)) word;
   const word *w;
   for (; (uintptr_t)s % ALIGN; s++) if (!*s) return s-a;
   for (w = (const void *)s; !HASZERO(*w); w++);
   s = (const void *)w;
   #endif
   for (; *s; s++);
   return s-a;
   }

   #include <libc-pointer-arith.h>
   #include <string-fzb.h>
   #include <string-fzc.h>
   #include <string-fzi.h>
   #include <string-shift.h>
   #include <string.h>
   
   #ifdef STRLEN
   # define __strlen STRLEN
   #endif
   
   /* Return the length of the null-terminated string STR.  Scan for
      the null terminator quickly by testing four bytes at a time.  */
   size_t
   __strlen (const char *str)
   {
     /* Align pointer to sizeof op_t.  */
     const uintptr_t s_int = (uintptr_t) str;
     const op_t *word_ptr = (const op_t*) PTR_ALIGN_DOWN (str, sizeof (op_t));
   
     op_t word = *word_ptr;
     find_t mask = shift_find (find_zero_all (word), s_int);
     if (mask != 0)
       return index_first (mask);
   
     do
       word = *++word_ptr;
     while (! has_zero (word));
   
     return ((const char *) word_ptr) + index_first_zero (word) - str;
   }
   #ifndef STRLEN
   weak_alias (__strlen, strlen)
   libc_hidden_builtin_def (strlen)
   #endif
   

   size_t
   strlen(const char *str)
   {
   const char *s;
   
   for (s = str; *s; ++s)
   continue;
   return(s - str);
   }

   size_t
   strlen(str)
           const char *str;
   {
           const char *s;
   
           for (s = str; *s; ++s);
           return(s - str);
   }

   #include <sys/cdefs.h>
   __FBSDID("$FreeBSD$");
   
   #include <sys/limits.h>
   #include <sys/types.h>
   #include <string.h>
   
   /*
    * Portable strlen() for 32-bit and 64-bit systems.
    *
    * Rationale: it is generally much more efficient to do word length
    * operations and avoid branches on modern computer systems, as
    * compared to byte-length operations with a lot of branches.
    *
    * The expression:
    *
    *      ((x - 0x01....01) & ~x & 0x80....80)
    *
    * would evaluate to a non-zero value iff any of the bytes in the
    * original word is zero.  However, we can further reduce ~1/3 of
    * time if we consider that strlen() usually operate on 7-bit ASCII
    * by employing the following expression, which allows false positive
    * when high bit of 1 and use the tail case to catch these case:
    *
    *      ((x - 0x01....01) & 0x80....80)
    *
    * This is more than 5.2 times as compared to the raw implementation
    * on Intel T7300 under EM64T mode for strings longer than word length.
    */
   
   /* Magic numbers for the algorithm */
   #if LONG_BIT == 32
   static const unsigned long mask01 = 0x01010101;
   static const unsigned long mask80 = 0x80808080;
   #elif LONG_BIT == 64
   static const unsigned long mask01 = 0x0101010101010101;
   static const unsigned long mask80 = 0x8080808080808080;
   #else
   #error Unsupported word size
   #endif
   
   #define LONGPTR_MASK (sizeof(long) - 1)
   
   /*
    * Helper macro to return string length if we caught the zero
    * byte.
    */
   #define testbyte(x)                             \
           do {                                    \
                   if (p[x] == '\0')               \
                       return (p - str + x);       \
           } while (0)
   
   size_t
   strlen(const char *str)
   {
           const char *p;
           const unsigned long *lp;
   
           /* Skip the first few bytes until we have an aligned p */
           for (p = str; (uintptr_t)p & LONGPTR_MASK; p++)
               if (*p == '\0')
                   return (p - str);
   
           /* Scan the rest of the string using word sized operation */
           for (lp = (const unsigned long *)p; ; lp++)
               if ((*lp - mask01) & mask80) {
                   p = (const char *)(lp);
                   testbyte(0);
                   testbyte(1);
                   testbyte(2);
                   testbyte(3);
   #if (LONG_BIT >= 64)
                   testbyte(4);
                   testbyte(5);
                   testbyte(6);
                   testbyte(7);
   #endif
               }
   
           /* NOTREACHED */
           return 0;
   }

  0: string copied
  1: string partially copied but truncated
  -1: Error, errno set.  This can occur when src or dst are NULL.

    int a[] = {1, 2, 3}
    int (*p1)[3] = &a; // ok
    int (*p2)[3] = &a[0]; // not ok
    int *p3 = &a; // not ok

    But you might be asking. “Why can’t I just assign the source variable directly to the destination variable?”

    int main() {
      char source[] = "Hello, world!";
      char* destination = source;
    
      strcpy(destination, source); // Copy the source string to the destination string
    
      printf("Source: %s\n", source);
      printf("Destination: %s\n", destination);
    
      return 0;
    }
    You can. It’s just that destination now becomes a char* and exists as a pointer to the source character array. If that isn’t what you want them this will almost certainly cause issues.