Talk:String (computer science): Difference between revisions

Revision as of 13:20, 10 May 2025

Revision as of 13:24, 10 May 2025

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WRT "A string is generally considered as a data type"

NoCan't argue that string is a type of data, but string is not a [[data type]]. Maybe that's a subtle difference to some, but there's an important difference. String is a higher level concept than [[data type]] as it pertains to programming. Many programming contexts (i.e. languages) have a string data type (or multiple). But there's significant difference between string data and a type for string data.

To illustrate the difference between string data and data type, consider C. It has no string type. The most commonly used data type for string data is char*; pointer to char. That is not a string type, yet it is used for string data. Note that char* can be used for non-string data; a pointer to a single char storage, for example. FWIW, the [[data structure]] is called [[null-terminated string]] or c-string.