Why is it that we can use the + operator to concatenate string variables but not string literals?

Answer 1

ShortCode sorry about that, I think the network here is slow or something

Answer 2

The usual literals are not std::string literals. They are raw character arrays of a constant size. (called c-strings).

The string class has overloaded operators as members and friends to support concatenation with other strings and c-strings.

But since no overload of + exists for concatenating two c-strings, you get an error when you try to perform "Hello"+" World" or a similar operation.

The workaround for this would be to either wrap one of the c-strings inside a string object and then concatenate it with the other literals, or use the literal operator""s to create std::string literals.

For the first solution:
std::string s3 = "Hello"+std::string(" there!");

And for the second:
std::string s4 = "Hello"+" there!"s;

The second solution uses the operator ""s to initialize a constant c-string as a std::string object, which can be concatenated to other literals. Literals are available since C++11, and are accessible when you use the std::literals namespace. (using namespace std::literals)

Answer 3

Are you asking this twice Moses Odhiambo?

Answer 4

Moses Odhiambo its okay. I often got that too!