P3655 cstring_view do we wan't it?

[soerengrunewald]

I wonder if we should have a cstring_view implementation, since std::string_view is not guaranteed to be null-terminated and therefor can not be safely used with C-API calls.

There is one very prominent implementation from bemanproject.

[alt-graph]

I wonder if we should have a cstring_view implementation, since std::string_view is not guaranteed to be null-terminated and therefor can not be safely used with C-API calls.

There is one very prominent implementation from bemanproject.

I think this would tick off the "generally useful" requirement, but personally I don't see too many places where I would use it. So – let's only start a PR if someone (you?) really wants this. Also, there should be a bit more documentation on the feature than they have at the Beman project. How does it interact with string_view, does size() include the null terminator, ...

[Finii]

Further considerations:

• Do we want to 'backport' something that is not even in any standard?
• Why the older cstring_view and not zstring_view? According to P3655 z is the proposed naming
• cstring_view is rather P1402
• does size() include the null terminator V.data()[V.size()] == '\0'

[Finii]

Ah, they renamed to cstring_view from zstring_view with R3 of P3655.

In refreshing this paper, it appears that cstring_view has gained ~200 added results, while zstring_view only added 8, hinting at a popular preference for the former name. In the October 2025 update, cstring_view has gained another 300 results, with zstring_view gaining 208.

The paper proposes cstring_view, as it has minor number advantage in every measurement so far.

but

7.2.3.2 POLL: Rename zstring_view to cstring_view

8/6/13/4/2

Attendance: 30 (IP) + 11 (R)

Author’s Position: F, A

Outcome: No consensus.

Btw, there is another, more simple (?) implementation, the reference implementation of the paper author Jeremy Rifkin
https://github.com/jeremy-rifkin/zstring_view

Which is roughly P3655R0 😬

Edit: Correct renaming information

[Finii]

After reading https://isocpp.org/files/papers/P3655R5.html#NVIDIA-Experience--moved-from-p3710- I guess this (adding cstring_view) is a good idea to progress with old libraries (aka doocs).

Not sure about bemanproject tough. Did not find any better one, but 7 forks and 3 stars is far from 'one very prominent implementation' ??