Chapter Summary

小结

This chapter covered arrays and pointers. These facilities provide functionality similar to that provided by the library vector and string types and their companion iterators. The vector type can be thought of as a more flexible, easier to manage array. Similarly, strings are a great improvement on C-style strings that are implemented as null-terminated character arrays.

本章介绍了数组和指针。数组和指针所提供的功能类似于标准库的 vector 类与 string 类和相关的迭代器所提供。我们可以把 vector 类型理解为更灵活、更容易管理的数组，同样，string 是 C 风格字符串的改进类型，而 C 风格字符串是以空字符结束的字符数组。

Iterators and pointers allow indirect access to objects. Iterators are used to examine elements and navigate between the elements in vectors. Pointers provide similar access to array elements. Although conceptually simple, pointers are notoriously hard to use in practice.

迭代器和指针都能用于间接地访问所指向的对象。vector 类型所包含的元素通过迭代器来操纵，类似地，指针则用于访问数组元素。尽管道理都很简单，但在实际应用中，指针的难用是出了名的。

Pointers and arrays can be necessary for certain low-level tasks, but they should be avoided because they are error-prone and hard to debug. In general, the library abstractions should be used in preference to low-level array and pointer alternatives built into the language. This advice is especially applicable to using strings instead of C-style null-terminated character arrays. Modern C++ programs should not use C-style strings.

某些低级任务必须使用指针和数组，但由于使用指针和数组容易出错而且难以调试，应尽量避免使用。一般而言，应该优先使用标准库抽象类而少用语言内置的低级数组和指针。尤其是应该使用 string 类型取代 C 风格以空字符结束的字符数组。现代 C++ 程序不应使用C风格字符串。