Question

I read String* in C++ code and got confused, is there any necessarity to use String* ? Can I use char* instead?
E.g. StreamReader has ReadLine() function, why not require user arrange a char array first and the function justs stores the string in it, returns a char* pointer and everything works just fine.

Answer 1

Notice that char* is a pointer to single string or multiple characters (array of chars), while string* is a pointer to a single or mulitple (array) of string objects. However, C# doesn’t support pointers to managed types (such as string)

Examples:

    unsafe void f()
    {
        char ch = '3';
        char* cPtr = &ch;
        *cPtr = '4'; // ch == '4'
        fixed (char* ccPtr = new char[30])
        {
            *(ccPtr + 15) = '4'; // arr[15] == '4'
        }
        string* ptr; // error: cannot declare a pointer to managed type
        fixed (char* pptr = new string(new char[] { 'a', 'b', 'c' }))
        {
            pptr[2] = 'd';
        }
    }