Why not just use or use as a base class CString (if you don't mind MFC, it's prettier, and it isn't derived from CObject so you don't need most of the Foundation classes so MFC-haters, don't try screaming that old line *grin*) or the STL basic_string (it's fine, it's dynamic, and it's platform independent) ?
-fel
In a singly-linked list, you are required to store an extra pointer with every item. With strings, assuming a pure linked list implementation, that's a pointer for every character, or a 400% increase in size (1 byte of string requiring 4 bytes of pointer) over an array of the same size?! Using a doubly-linked list (why? singly linked with pointer reversal is good enough for most applications 
) will disimprove that to an 800% increase.
Using dynamic arrays, you are limited to the capacity of malloc(), which is governed by the size_t variable. Testing under linux, it worked for values up to 2147483647 before compiling with warnings... which is more space than I think most people have memory (by just a bit 
)
As for efficiency, it really depends what you're planning on doing. Concatenating is done in constant time using linked lists, but most other operations are done in comparable (or better - substr becomes a memcpy ) time by the array. Sure, there's a slight internal memory loss just after increasing the size of the array, but with an efficient scheme this could be minimized (if it's even a problem) without needing to call realloc too often. (Again, depends on the string operations required)
I would recommend arrays, all the way!
Sorry for going on so long... I've just had this discussion too many times before :P
White Fire
Make sure you implement copy-on-write, or else make sure you pass your strings by reference only.
Also, make your dynamic memory setup "granular" - that is, make it smart enough to allocate 64 bytes at once rather than resizing 64 different times, lest you'll be summon the memory fragmentation demon...
Mason McCuskey
Spin Studios
www.spin-studios.com
A string in c is no more or less than a pointer to char (Probably an array). A string class would then be a wrapper for *char, so you could implement ideas like arbitrary-length strings, fully optimised substring searches, and just about any other string operation you can think of, and provide a simple external interface for these functions.
Necessary? Hardly, but may save time in the long run.
Enjoy,
White Fire
