4.18 — Introduction to std::string_view

Consider the following program:

#include <iostream>

int main()
{
    int x { 5 };
    std::cout << x << '\n';

    return 0;
}

When the definition for x is executed, the initialization value 5 is copied into the memory allocated for int x. For fundamental types, initializing (or copying) a variable is fast.

Now consider this similar program:

#include <iostream>
#include <string>

int main()
{
    std::string s{ "Hello, world!" };
    std::cout << s << '\n';

    return 0;
}

When s is initialized, the C-style string literal "Hello, world!" is copied into memory allocated for std::string s. Unlike fundamental types, initializing (or copying) a std::string is slow.

In the above program, all we do with s is print the value to the console, and then s is destroyed. We’ve essentially made a copy of “Hello, world!” just to print and then destroy that copy. That’s inefficient.

We see something similar in this example:

#include <iostream>
#include <string>

void printString(std::string str)
{
    std::cout << str << '\n';
}

int main()
{
    std::string s{ "Hello, world!" };
    printString(s);

    return 0;
}

This example makes two copies of the C-style string “Hello, world!”: one when we initialize s in main(), and another when we initialize parameter str in printString(). That’s a lot of needless copying just to print a string!

std::string_view C++17

To address the issue with std::string being expensive to initialize (or copy), C++17 introduced std::string_view (which lives in the <string_view> header). std::string_view provides read-only access to an existing string (a C-style string literal, a std::string, or a char array) without making a copy.

The following example is identical to the prior one, except we’ve replaced std::string with std::string_view.

#include <iostream>
#include <string_view>

void printSV(std::string_view str) // now a std::string_view
{
    std::cout << str << '\n';
}

int main()
{
    std::string_view s{ "Hello, world!" }; // now a std::string_view
    printSV(s);

    return 0;
}

This program produces the same output as the prior one, but no copies of the string “Hello, world!” are made.

When we initialize std::string_view s with C-style string literal "Hello, world!", s provides read-only access to “Hello, world!” without making a copy of the string. When we pass s to printSV(), parameter str is initialized from s. This allows us to access “Hello, world!” through str, again without making a copy of the string.

constexpr std::string_view

Unlike std::string, std::string_view has full support for constexpr:

#include <iostream>
#include <string_view>

int main()
{
    constexpr std::string_view s{ "Hello, world!" };
    std::cout << s << '\n'; // s will be replaced with "Hello, world!" at compile-time

    return 0;
}

Converting a std::string to a std::string_view

A std::string_view can be created using a std::string initializer, and a std::string will implicitly convert to a std::string_view:

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <string_view>

void printSV(std::string_view str)
{
    std::cout << str << '\n';
}

int main()
{
    std::string s{ "Hello, world" };
    std::string_view sv{ s }; // Initialize a std::string_view from a std::string
    std::cout << sv << '\n';

    printSV(s); // implicitly convert a std::string to std::string_view
        
    return 0;
}

Converting a std::string_view to a std::string

Because std::string makes a copy of its initializer (which is expensive), C++ won’t allow implicit conversion of a std::string_view to a std::string. However, we can explicitly create a std::string with a std::string_view initializer, or we can convert an existing std::string_view to a std::string using static_cast:

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <string_view>

void printString(std::string str)
{
    std::cout << str << '\n';
}

int main()
{
  std::string_view sv{ "balloon" };

  std::string str{ sv }; // okay, we can create std::string using std::string_view initializer

  // printString(sv);   // compile error: won't implicitly convert std::string_view to a std::string

  printString(static_cast<std::string>(sv)); // okay, we can explicitly cast a std::string_view to a std::string
	   
  return 0;
}

Literals for std::string_view

Double-quoted string literals are C-style string literals by default. We can create string literals with type std::string_view by using a sv suffix after the double-quoted string literal.

#include <iostream>
#include <string>      // for std::string
#include <string_view> // for std::string_view

int main()
{
    using namespace std::literals; // easiest way to access the s and sv suffixes

    std::cout << "foo\n";   // no suffix is a C-style string literal
    std::cout << "goo\n"s;  // s suffix is a std::string literal
    std::cout << "moo\n"sv; // sv suffix is a std::string_view literal

    return 0;
};

Do not return a std::string_view

Returning a std::string_view from a function is usually a bad idea. We’ll explore why in lesson 11.7 -- std::string_view (part 2). For now, avoid doing so.