CString Semantics
Even though CString objects are dynamic objects that can grow, they act like built-in primitive types and simple classes. Each CString
object represents a unique value. CString
objects should be thought of as the actual strings rather than as pointers to strings.
You can assign one CString
object to another. However, when you modify one of the two CString
objects, the other CString
object is not modified, as shown by the following example:
CString s1, s2;
s1 = s2 = _T("hi there");
ASSERT(s1 == s2); // they are equal
s1.MakeUpper(); // Does not modify s2
ASSERT(s2[0] == _T('h')); // s2 is still "hi there"
Note in the example that the two CString
objects are considered "equal" because they represent the same character string. The CString
class overloads the equality operator (==
) to compare two CString
objects based on their value (contents) rather than their identity (address).