Flash cards
Review the key moves
What is the main idea behind C++ C-Style Strings?
Lesson checks
Practice each idea before moving on
Short Mimo-style checks built from this lesson's code, terms, and sequence.
Which statement best captures the main point of this lesson?
Complete the missing token from the example code.
___ greeting1 = "Hello"; // Regular StringPut the learning moves in the order that makes the concept easiest to apply.
C-Style Strings
C-style strings are created with the char type instead of string .
The name comes from the C language , which, unlike many other programming languages, does not have a string type for easily creating string variables. Instead, you must use the char type and create an array of characters to make a "string" in C.
As C++ was developed as an extension of C, it continued to support this way of creating strings in C++:
string greeting1 = "Hello"; // Regular String
char greeting2[] = "Hello"; // C-Style String (an array of characters)Note
It is more convenient to work with the standard string type, rather than C-style strings. However, one reason some users continue to use C-style strings is that they have access to functions from the C standard library.
A list of all C-style string functions, can be found in our CString Functions Reference .