Simple BO/Memory Question

[Matriplex]

I've decided to take a little vacation from my regular programming and get back into hacking a bit as I have a little bit of free time now. So I'm studing program exploitation now, and will be doing so for probably the next few months.

So I have a small program I am exploiting with a buffer overflow attack. There's an array "char array[8]", which is the vulnerability because I can send data to it. In order for it to overflow, I need to send exactly 16 characters. However, this makes no sense to me because afaik, a char takes up one byte. Therefore I should only have to send 8 characters, but instead I have to send double that amount.

Could someone explain the reason I have to send this particular amount?

Thanks.

Edit:
After a bit more in depth reading and testing, I've discovered that when that line is run the compiler creates 16 bytes of space for the variable (sub $0x10, %rsp). So now I understand why I have to put 16 characters in, however I still don't get why it creates that much space.

[Matriplex]

Hate to double post, but I am quite curious about this particular question.

[Matriplex]

That makes sense, thanks.
Is there any way to tell exactly how much you really need short of trial and error or an automated script?

[Matriplex]

Great, I'll check it out. Thanks for the help.

I also just discovered that your signature is a dick. Hats off to you sir.

[proxx]

Anytime and good luck

Also, I own the email 0x@383d3d44.com lol

You shouldnt post you email address in public bro.