string-pool

I need a "string pool" object into which I can repeatedly insert a "sequence of chars" (I use this phrase to mean "string" without confusing it with std::string or a C string), obtain a pointer to the sequence, and be guaranteed that the pointer will not become invalidated if/when the pool needs to grow. Using a simple std::string as the pool won't work, because of the possibility for the string to be reallocated when it outgrows its initial capacity, thus invalidating all previous pointers into it. The pool will not grow without bound -- there are well-defined points at which I will call a

just been inspecting the following in gdb: char *a[] = {"one","two","three","four"}; char *b[] = {"one","two","three","four"}; char *c[] = {"two","three","four","five"}; char *d[] = {"one","three","four","six"}; and i get the following: (gdb) p a $17 = {0x80961a4 "one", 0x80961a8 "two", 0x80961ac "three", 0x80961b2 "four"} (gdb) p b $18 = {0x80961a4 "one", 0x80961a8 "two", 0x80961ac "three", 0x80961b2 "four"} (gdb) p c $19 = {0x80961a8 "two", 0x80961ac "three", 0x80961b2 "four", 0x80961b7 "five"} (gdb) p d $20 = {0x80961a4 "one", 0x80961ac "three", 0x80961b2 "four", 0x80961bc "six"} I'm really