Is ZeroMemory the windows equivalent of null terminating a buffer?

Question

For example I by convention null terminate a buffer (set buffer equal to zero) the following way, example 1:

char buffer[1024] = {0};

And with the windows.h library we can call ZeroMemory, example 2:

char buffer[1024]; ZeroMemory(buffer, sizeof(buffer));

According to the documentation provided by microsoft: ZeroMemory Fills a block of memory with zeros. I want to be accurate in my windows application so I thought what better place to ask than stack overflow.

Are these two examples equivalent in logic?

Why would you need to call an API function here when the C++ language does all you need. — David Heffernan
– David Heffernan, Commented Oct 19, 2020 at 13:50
@DavidHeffernan Sometimes just to make it blindingly obvious ;-) — dxiv
– dxiv, Commented Oct 19, 2020 at 17:44
In fact, the C++ compiler is likely to convert the first (portable, standard) syntax into the appropriate API call for fast zeroing. — Ben Voigt
– Ben Voigt, Commented Oct 19, 2020 at 19:59

Remy Lebeau · Accepted Answer · 2020-10-19 18:49:12Z

Yes, the two codes are equivalent. The entire array is filled with zeros in both cases.

In the case of char buffer[1024] = {0};, you are explicitly setting only the first char element to 0, and then the compiler implicitly value-initializes the remaining 1023 char elements to 0 for you.

In C++11 and later, you can omit that first element value:

char buffer[1024] = {}; char buffer[1024]{};

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Is ZeroMemory the windows equivalent of null terminating a buffer?

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