Question

I just want to be sure:

string x = "";   
char Char = x[0];  // throws exception: "Index was outside the bounds of the array"

This means that the string is really treated as an array of chars, right? (At least internally.)

Answer 1

Per @JaredPar elsewhere on this site:

The underyling string you create will
also need a contiguous block of memory
because it is represented as an array
of chars (arrays require contiguous
memory) .

I am sure you should not rely on this as it’s not part of the interface, but implementation is an array if this statement is correct. That makes sense to me given what we know about char-strings and Microsoft’s need to support efficient interop between managed and native languages.

MSDN says only this, which does not guarantee that the storage is an array.

A string is a sequential collection of
Unicode characters that is used to
represent text. A String object is a
sequential collection of System.Char
objects that represent a string. The
value of the String object is the
content of the sequential collection,
and that value is immutable (that is,
it is read-only).