c++stringnullstdstringnull-terminated

Does std::string have a null terminator?

Will the below string contain the null terminator '\0'?

std::string temp = "hello whats up";
Solution

  • No, but if you say temp.c_str() a null terminator will be included in the return from this method.

    It's also worth saying that you can include a null character in a string just like any other character.

    string s("hello");
cout << s.size() << ' ';
s[1] = '\0';
cout << s.size() << '\n';

    prints

    5 5

    and not 5 1 as you might expect if null characters had a special meaning for strings.