c++ - Char pointer giving me some really strange characters

Question

When I run the example code, the wordLength is 7 (hence the output 7). But my char array gets some really weird characters in the end of it.

wordLength = word.length();

cout << wordLength;

char * wordchar = new char[wordLength]; //new char[7]; ??

for (int i = 0; i < word.length(); i++) //0-6 = 7
{
    wordchar[i] = 'a';
}

cout << wordchar;

The output: 7 aaaaaaa2222|||||?D╩2|♀

Desired output is: aaaaaaa... What is the garbage behind it?? And how did it end up there?

Answer 1

You should add at the end of wordchar.

char * wordchar = new char[wordLength +1];
//add chars as you have done
wordchar[wordLength] = ``

The reason is that C-strings are null terminated.