initializing strings as null vs. empty string

Question

How would it matter if my C++ code (as shown below) has a string initialized as an empty string :

std::string myStr = \"\";
....some code to optionally popul         


        

Answer 1

Empty-ness and "NULL-ness" are two different concepts. As others mentioned the former can be achieved via std::string::empty(), the latter can be achieved with boost::optional, e.g.:

boost::optional myStr;
if (myStr) { // myStr != NULL
    // ...
}