Question

I’m a bit fuzzy on the basic ways in which programmers code differently in C and C++. One thing in particular is the usage of strings in C++ over char arrays, or vice versa. So, should I use strings or char arrays, in general, and why?

Answer 1

In C++ you should in almost all cases use std::string instead of a raw char array.

std::string manages the underlying memory for you, which is by itself a good enough reason to prefer it.

It also provides a much easier to use and more readable interface for common string operations, e.g. equality testing, concatenation, substring operations, searching, and iteration.