Strings

In older C++ books and in C books, strings are arrays of characters - C-style strings. Except when speed is vital, C++ strings are preferable to these. For some operators (concatenation, for example) strings may be a lot faster than C's character arrays. Also

• They grow on demand
• The Standard Library algorithms work on them
• Other containers use them
• Natural constructions like s=s1+s2; are possible

String objects have many features in common with other Standard Library objects. Since strings are familiar to you, it's useful to look at the facilities in more detail to prepare you for other Standard Library components.