CString

CString is a boon to all C++ converts of MFC. Good God! it is so much of a pain to use char* in c++. A small mistake could lead to big mishaps, to any programmer’s nightmare. CString in MFC gives lot many features to handle strings, weaning away all such bad memories of char *. This article deals with the usage of CString in MFC programs. It also tries to give some small code snippets wherever necessary.

CString Features:

There are some special features in CString that makes it really unique and attractive. Some of them are

CString has no base classes in MFC. So it is light weight.
CString is written based on TCHAR type. It can automatically support UNICODE as well as ASCII strings.
CString implements a reference counting mechanism for copy of objects. This saves a lot of memory usage.

How to Use CString:

CString can be initialized by calling one of its constructors. It can be instantiated with or without parameters. The constructors can accept a char, char*, TCHAR, wchar types as a parameter. The string is constructed according to the parameter passed.

In case it is created without any parameters, the string will be empty. Values can be assigned with the use of ‘=’ operator.

CString strExample;
strExample = "CString sample value";

To get the length of a CString, the function CString.GetLength() can be used. This returns the length of the string as an integer.

String Concatenation with a CString:

String concatenation is very easy with CString. CString has an overloaded operator for + sign, which makes a programmer’s life easier.

CString strExample1 = "Sample Value ";
CString strExample2 = "for concat with CString";

//Concatenation with CString and CString
strExample1 = strExample1 + strExample2;

//Concatenation with CString and a const char*
strExample1 = strExample1 + "for concat without CString";

CString and BSTR:

CString also provides for conversions to BSTR with functions like AllocSysString and SetSysString. It can allocate memory and copy the data into the allocated space for BSTR.

CString strBstrConv = "Sample for CString to BSTR";
BSTR bstrVariable = strBstrConv.AllocSysString();

String Comparisons with CString:

CString contains an operator member function for the ‘=’ operator. This operator performs a case-sensitive comparison. For case-insensitive comparisons the function CompareNoCase can be used.

CString strCompareString1 = "String Compare Sample";
CString strCompareString2 = "sTring Compare Sample";

//Using == operator case sensitive CString comparison
if(strCompareString1 == strCompareString2)
  MessageBox("Both Strings are equal - Case Sensitive");

//Using CompareNoCase for case-insensitive CString comparison
if(strCompareString1.ComparNoCase(strCompareString2) == 0)
   MessageBox("Both Strings are equal - Case Insensitive");

Finding a Character inside CString:

CString supports find for a single character and also strings. It provides searching a character from the reverse direction.

   CString strFindData = "Finding a Character and a string in forward direction";

//Find a char 'C'
int lPos = strFindData.Find('C');

//Find "string"
int lPos = strFindData.Find('string');

These find functions return the position of the character or string as an integer.

Using Format Functions in CString:

The Format function in CString can be used to convert different data types into a string type. This function is similar to the sprintf function.

CString strFormatData;
int x = 40;
char strdata[] = "Test Data ";

strFormatData.Format("%s %d",x,strdata);

//The output will be "Test Data  40"

The above is only a small list of the capabilities of CString. There are a lot more of features available with CString. Not all of them can be explained. More of those features will become clear when one starts using it.