How to Make a String of Asterisks in C++

The C++ programming language stores and manipulates strings as arrays of characters. You can think of a string in C++ as an ordered list of individual characters. This may seem a bit awkward for programmers accustomed to simply declaring a string type in other languages. However, treating each character as a discrete rather than a part of a whole allows much finer control when parsing and manipulating strings. Declare an array of characters, and assign each member the value of "*" to create a string of asterisks.

Instructions

1. Declare and initialize an array of characters. For this example, use the following code:

   char astString[]

2. Assign the value of "*" to the individual array members. Building on the code in step one:

   char astString[] = {'*', '*', '*', '*', '*', '*', '*', '*', '*', '*', '*',0};

   This statement creates a character array of 11 asterisks. The zero at the end of the statement is used by C++ to indicate the end of the array.

3. Display the string to the screen with the following example:

   showString(astString);

4. Write showString as a separate function. This is a simple way to display the members of the array:

   void showString(char astString[])

   {

   for (int i = 0; astString[i] != '\0'; i++)

   {

   cout<< astString[i];

   }

   }

   This simple loop steps through the array and prints each member to the screen. The function terminates when it encounters the '0' character at the end of the array.

Tips & Warnings

• The code, in the context of a program, looks like this:

• int main()

• {

• char astString[] = {'*', '*', '*', '*', '*', '*', '*', '*', '*', '*', '*',0};

• showString(astString);

• return 0;

• }

• void showString(char astString[])

• {

• for (int i = 0; astString[i] != '\0'; i++)

• {

• cout<< astString[i];

• }

• }

References

• Function X: Arrays of Characters