Comment by jhallenworld

I'm not so happy with C++ string either. Main complaint is that I like the use of C strings as "semi-predicates"- you can test for NULL to indicate a failure. I wrote my own String class at one point to provide this feature:

  // These provide test if assigned/not assigned
  inline operator void*() const
    {
    return (void *)s;
    }

  inline bool operator!() const
    {
    if(s) return 0;
    else return 1;
    }