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5 Strings

C++ supports two types of strings: C-style character strings and the string class. C-style strings are null-terminated arrays of characters with many manipulation functions like strcpy(), strcat(), strlen(). The C++ string class supports similar functionality but with object-oriented syntax like str1 + str2 for concatenation and str.size() to get length. Both approaches are demonstrated with examples.

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18 views4 pages

5 Strings

C++ supports two types of strings: C-style character strings and the string class. C-style strings are null-terminated arrays of characters with many manipulation functions like strcpy(), strcat(), strlen(). The C++ string class supports similar functionality but with object-oriented syntax like str1 + str2 for concatenation and str.size() to get length. Both approaches are demonstrated with examples.

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Lucy Calilan
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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C++ Strings

Detail

C++ provides following two types of string representations −

 The C-style character string.


 The string class type introduced with Standard C++.

The C-Style Character String


The C-style character string originated within the C language and continues to be supported within
C++. This string is actually a one-dimensional array of characters which is terminated by
a null character '\0'. Thus a null-terminated string contains the characters that comprise the string
followed by a null.
The following declaration and initialization create a string consisting of the word "Hello". To hold
the null character at the end of the array, the size of the character array containing the string is one
more than the number of characters in the word "Hello."
char greeting[6] = {'H', 'e', 'l', 'l', 'o', '\0'};
If you follow the rule of array initialization, then you can write the above statement as follows −
char greeting[] = "Hello";
Following is the memory presentation of above defined string in C/C++ −

Actually, you do not place the null character at the end of a string constant. The C++ compiler
automatically places the '\0' at the end of the string when it initializes the array. Let us try to print
above-mentioned string –
#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

int main () {

char greeting[6] = {'H', 'e', 'l', 'l', 'o', '\0'};

cout << "Greeting message: ";


cout << greeting << endl;

return 0;
}
When the above code is compiled and executed, it produces the following result −
Greeting message: Hello
C++ supports a wide range of functions that manipulate null-terminated strings −

Sr.No Function & Purpose

1
strcpy(s1, s2);
Copies string s2 into string s1.

2
strcat(s1, s2);
Concatenates string s2 onto the end of string s1.

3
strlen(s1);
Returns the length of string s1.

4
strcmp(s1, s2);
Returns 0 if s1 and s2 are the same; less than 0 if s1<s2; greater than 0 if s1>s2.

5
strchr(s1, ch);
Returns a pointer to the first occurrence of character ch in string s1.

6
strstr(s1, s2);
Returns a pointer to the first occurrence of string s2 in string s1.
Following example makes use of few of the above-mentioned functions −

#include <iostream>
#include <cstring>

using namespace std;

int main () {

char str1[10] = "Hello";


char str2[10] = "World";
char str3[10];
int len ;

// copy str1 into str3


strcpy( str3, str1);
cout << "strcpy( str3, str1) : " << str3 << endl;

// concatenates str1 and str2


strcat( str1, str2);
cout << "strcat( str1, str2): " << str1 << endl;

// total lenghth of str1 after concatenation


len = strlen(str1);
cout << "strlen(str1) : " << len << endl;

return 0;
}
When the above code is compiled and executed, it produces result something as follows −
strcpy( str3, str1) : Hello
strcat( str1, str2): HelloWorld
strlen(str1) : 10
The String Class in C++
The standard C++ library provides a string class type that supports all the operations mentioned
above, additionally much more functionality. Let us check the following example −

#include <iostream>
#include <string>

using namespace std;

int main () {

string str1 = "Hello";


string str2 = "World";
string str3;
int len ;

// copy str1 into str3


str3 = str1;
cout << "str3 : " << str3 << endl;

// concatenates str1 and str2


str3 = str1 + str2;
cout << "str1 + str2 : " << str3 << endl;

// total length of str3 after concatenation


len = str3.size();
cout << "str3.size() : " << len << endl;

return 0;
}
When the above code is compiled and executed, it produces result something as follows −
str3 : Hello
str1 + str2 : HelloWorld
str3.size() : 10

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