C++ Primer, Fifth Edition

3.5.4. C-Style Character Strings

Warning

Although C++ supports C-style strings, they should not be used by C++ programs. C-style strings are a surprisingly rich source of bugs and are the root cause of many security problems. They’re also harder to use!

Character string literals are an instance of a more general construct that C++ inherits from C: C-style character strings. C-style strings are not a type. Instead, they are a convention for how to represent and use character strings. Strings that follow this convention are stored in character ...