C++ Strings
Strings are used for storing text.
A string variable contains a collection of characters surrounded by double
quotes:
Example
Create a variable of type string and assign it a value:
string greeting = "Hello";
To use strings, you must include an additional header file in the source code,
the <string> library:
Example
// Include the string library
#include <string>
// Create a string variable
string greeting = "Hello";
String Concatenation
The + operator can be used between strings to add them together to make a
new string. This is called concatenation:
Example
string firstName = "John ";
string lastName = "Doe";
string fullName = firstName + lastName;
cout << fullName;
In the example above, we added a space after firstName to create a space
between John and Doe on output. However, you could also add a space with
quotes (" " or ' '):
Example
string firstName = "John";
string lastName = "Doe";
string fullName = firstName + " " + lastName;
cout << fullName;
Append
A string in C++ is actually an object, which contain functions that can
perform certain operations on strings. For example, you can also concatenate
strings with the append() function:
Example
string firstName = "John ";
string lastName = "Doe";
string fullName = firstName.append(lastName);
cout << fullName;
C++ Numbers and Strings
Adding Numbers and Strings
WARNING!
C++ uses the + operator for both addition and concatenation.
Numbers are added. Strings are concatenated.
If you add two numbers, the result will be a number:
Example
int x = 10;
int y = 20;
int z = x + y; // z will be 30 (an integer)
If you add two strings, the result will be a string concatenation:
Example
string x = "10";
string y = "20";
string z = x + y; // z will be 1020 (a string)
If you try to add a number to a string, an error occurs:
Example
string x = "10";
int y = 20;
string z = x + y;
String Length
To get the length of a string, use the length() function:
Example
string txt = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ";
cout << "The length of the txt string is: " << txt.length();
Tip: You might see some C++ programs that use the size() function to get
the length of a string. This is just an alias of length(). It is completely up to
you if you want to use length() or size():
Example
string txt = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ";
cout << "The length of the txt string is: " << txt.size();
Access Strings
You can access the characters in a string by referring to its index number
inside square brackets [].
This example prints the first character in myString:
Example
string myString = "Hello";
cout << myString[0];
// Outputs H
Note: String indexes start with 0: [0] is the first character. [1] is the second
character, etc.
This example prints the second character in myString:
Example
string myString = "Hello";
cout << myString[1];
// Outputs e
Change String Characters
To change the value of a specific character in a string, refer to the index
number, and use single quotes:
Example
string myString = "Hello";
myString[0] = 'J';
cout << myString;
// Outputs Jello instead of Hello
Strings - Special Characters
Because strings must be written within quotes, C++ will misunderstand this
string, and generate an error:
string txt = "We are the so-called "Vikings" from the north.";
The solution to avoid this problem, is to use the backslash escape
character.
The backslash (\) escape character turns special characters into string
characters:
Escape character Result Description
\' ' Single quote
\" " Double quote
\\ \ Backslash
The sequence \" inserts a double quote in a string:
Example
string txt = "We are the so-called \"Vikings\" from the north.";
The sequence \' inserts a single quote in a string:
Example
string txt = "It\'s alright.";
The sequence \\ inserts a single backslash in a string:
Example
string txt = "The character \\ is called backslash.";
Other popular escape characters in C++ are:
Escape Character Result
\n New Line
\t Tab
User Input Strings
It is possible to use the extraction operator >> on cin to store a string
entered by a user:
Example
string firstName;
cout << "Type your first name: ";
cin >> firstName; // get user input from the keyboard
cout << "Your name is: " << firstName;
// Type your first name: John
// Your name is: John
However, cin considers a space (whitespace, tabs, etc) as a terminating
character, which means that it can only store a single word (even if you type
many words):
Example
string fullName;
cout << "Type your full name: ";
cin >> fullName;
cout << "Your name is: " << fullName;
// Type your full name: John Doe
// Your name is: John
From the example above, you would expect the program to print "John Doe",
but it only prints "John".
That's why, when working with strings, we often use the getline() function
to read a line of text. It takes cin as the first parameter, and the string
variable as second:
Example
string fullName;
cout << "Type your full name: ";
getline (cin, fullName);
cout << "Your name is: " << fullName;
// Type your full name: John Doe
// Your name is: John Doe
