Question

When we have to work with string manipulation, is there any significants performance difference between std::string and std::stringbuf, and if yes why.

More generally when it is good to use std::stringbuf over std::string ?

Answer 1

A std::stringbuf uses a string internally to buffer data, so it is probably a bit slower. I don’t think the difference would be significant though, because it basically just delegation. To be sure you’d have to run some performance-tests though.

std::stringbuf is useful when you want an IO-stream to use a string as buffer (like std::stringstream, which uses a std::stringbuf by default).