Question

A few websites claim that the string type is a scalar. As I understand it, scalars are single-value types, as opposed to array types. But isn’t a string essentially an array of chars? So why would it be a scalar?

EDIT: If the answer/explanation differs from C to C++, I’d like explanations to include both languages. I’m adding the C++ tag to this question.

Answer 1

char* and const char* are scalar types, whereas char[n] and const char[n] are not.

Arithmetic types, enumeration types, pointer types, pointer to member types, std::nullptr_t, and cv-qualified versions of these types are collectively called scalar types. (3.9 Types [basic.types] §9)