Why(How) we can use char* to store a string?

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Hi Why this code works?

C++

char* ch="hello";
cout<<ch;

I thought we can only store single characters (char ch='a' or '3' or '$') or ASCI numbers (char ch= 65) in a character container. But when I use a character pointer, I can store a string in it. How is this possible? And is there other things I don't know about chars?

Posted 25-Jul-14 18:34pm

hor_313

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Andreas Gieriet · Answer 1 · 2014-07-25T18:57:00

You seem to not know the basics of pointers and string literals in C/C++.
I suggest to work through some tutorial on C/C++, e.g., Character Sequences[^] and Pointers[^]. Or even better, go through all parts of the C++ Language[^] tutorial (or any similar reference).

For the particular case:
1. "hello" is a sequence of 6 characters: h,e,l,l,o plus the terminating zero character.
2. that sequence of characters is accessible through the memory address of the first character of the sequence
3. that address is stored in a pointer variable
4. in C/C++ you write a pointer to a type as type * var = ...;, e.g. char * s = "hello";
5. naming a pointer to character as ch is fooling everyone - name it greeting or alike

Cheers
Andi

Abhinav S · Answer 2 · 2014-07-25T18:39:00

Solution 1

char * is different from char. char * represents a pointer to a storage location that holds a string.
char is simply storing the character value.

Posted 25-Jul-14 18:39pm

Abhinav S

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Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 26-Jul-14 1:38am

Strictly speaking, char * just points to a character or just any data, because any byte of data could be considered as a character. It does not tell what is supposed to be next to this character in memory. You could call it a string if you want...
—SA