COLLEGE OF INFORMATICS AND VIRTUAL EDUCATION

(CIVE)

CP123: Introduction to High-Level Programming

String Manipulation

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 C++ Strings
 A string is a sequence of characters.
 Two types of strings are supported by compilers:
 C-style strings: null-terminated(‘\0’) array of characters.
 C++ strings: object whose string type is defined in the
<string> library.
 You can convert C++ string into C-style string using
c_str() function:

string s = “ABCDEFG”;
const char* cs = s.c_str();
 The c_str() function has a return type const char*
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 C++ Strings
 Formatted Input: Stream extraction operator
 cin >> stringObject;
 the extraction operator >> formats the data that it receives
through its input stream; it skips over whitespace.
 Unformatted Input: getline function for a string
 getline( cin, s)
 does not skip over whitespace
 delimited by newline
 reads an entire line of characters into s

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 String Length
 Unlike numbers, strings are objects.
 The number of characters in a string is called the length of
the string.
 E.g., the length of “Tegeta Escrow Account!” is 22.
 Compute the length of the string with the length()
function:
 int n = name.length();
 Thus, can call functions on strings, e.g., name.length()

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 Indexing Strings
 Characters of a string are numbered with 0-based
indexes:
string mkday=“Mkwawa2014”;

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
M k w a w a 2 0 1 4

 The first character's index is always 0.

 The last character's index is 1 less than the string's length.
 The individual characters are values of type char.

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 Accessing Individual Characters
 Using square brackets, you can access individual characters
within a string as if it’s a char array.
 That is, you can read and write to characters within a string
using an index of particular character within [].
 Note that string indexes range from 0 to string length-1. Be
careful not to access positions outside the bounds of the
string.
 Syntax:
char charName=StringName[index];
 Example:
string courseID=“IS 142”;
char firstLetter=courseID[0] //accesses character ‘I’ 6
 Accessing Individual Characters..
 You can also use the at() function to access
individual string characters:
 Example:
stringName.at(i)=‘A’;

 Is Equivalent to:
stringName[i]=‘A’;

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 Retrieving a Substring
 Function substr() retrieves a substring from a
given string.
 Syntax:

OriginalString.substr(startIndex,N)
 OriginalString: String from which a substring is to be
extracted.
 startIndex: first character to start retrieving.
 N: total number of characters to be retrieved.
 Example:
string name=“Mkwawa University College”;
string newName=name.substr(0,6); //Mkwawa 8
 Comparing Two Strings
 Relational and Equality Operators are used to
compare two strings.
 The comparison is lexicographical, character by
character and is case-sensitive.
 The values of characters in the ASCII table
determines the result of comparison.
 For example the ASCII value for A is 65 and that of a
is 97, therefore a is greater than A.

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 Comparing Two Strings..
 Example:
string fruit1=“apple”;
string fruit2=“Apple”;

bool check1=(fruit1==fruit2) //false

bool check2=(fruit1!=fruit2) //true
bool check3=(fruit1>=fruit2) //true
bool check4=(fruit<fruit2) //false

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 String Concatenation
 One string can be appended to another by using a +
sign.
 Syntax:
newString=string1+string2;
 Example:
string courseID=“IS142”;
string colon=“:”;
string courseName=“High-Level Programming”;
string course=courseID+colon+courseName;
//IS142:High-Level Programming
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 Searching Within a String
 find() function is used to search for particular substring or
character in a given string.
 It returns the index of the first occurrence of a given
substring or character .
 If the item being searched is not in the given string, the
length of the string is displayed.
 Syntax:
int indx=stringName.find(searchedItem);
 Example:
string s7 = “Mississippi River basin”; //23 characters
cout << s7.find(“si”) << endl; //prints 3
cout << s7.find(“so”) << endl; //prints 23, the length of the string 12
 Searching Within a String
 find() function has an optional integer argument
that allows you to specify the starting position
from which searching can begin.
 Syntax:

int indx=stringName.find(searchedItem,
startingIndex);
 Example:
string s7 = “Mississippi River basin”; //23 characters
cout << s7.find(“si”,4) << endl; //prints 6
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 String Modification
 String length or contents can be modified using these
functions:
 replace()
 insert()
 erase()

 Syntax for replace():

string newString=originalString.replace(startIndex,NoOfChars,newChars);
 Syntax for insert():
string newString=originalString.insert(startIndex, newChars);
 Inserts newChars before startIndex
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 String Modification..
 Syntax for erase():
string newString=originalString.erase(startIndex);
 Erase from startIndex to end of string, including
startIndex.
 Example:
string str = "this is an example string.";
string str3="sample phrase";

str.replace(19,6, str3, 7, 6); // "this is an example phrase."

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 Manipulation of Individual Characters
in a String
 C++ allows to manipulate individual characters in the
string using special functions available in various
libraries.
 An example of such libraries is ctype.h with following
functions:
 toupper() //converts a character to uppercase
 tolower() //converts a character to lowercase
 isupper() //checks if a character is in uppercase
 islower() //checks is a character is in lowercase
 isdigit() //checks is a character is a digit
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 Manipulation of Individual Characters
in a String..
 The ctype.h library need to be included in your program
before you can use any of its functions.
 An example of such libraries is ctype.h with following
functions:
 isalpha() //checks if a character is an alphabet
 isspace() //checks if a character is a whitespace or
//not-white space means tab or space
bar //character
 isalnum() //checks if a character is alphanumeric-
//that means alphabet or digit
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Example One

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Example Two

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