strings,pointers, and using namespace std;...................?

[parksie]

I think it's

char* strncpy(char *dest, const char *source, size_t length);

It copies length characters from source to dest, without adding a terminator.

char is an integral type, so these are equivalent:

char c;

c = '\0';
c = 0;

It's not platform independence, just convention that strings end with NULL. Although in DOS, they used to end with a '$' symbol (don't ask why - this is still needed in asm).