Question

I want to write my own C string library. What should I do?

I want it to be able to do everything the C standard library functions can do, but quicker and safer. It needs to be portable and easy to use and bug-free as well

Answer 1

So far, I've started with

typedef struct gstring {
char* data;
size_t length;
} gstring; // G for george, not the underwear!

Answer 2

Why are you looking to recreate the C string library? I mean, it's pretty battle tested as it is.

Answer 3

Or is this strictly a learning exercise?

Answer 4

It is a rite of passage :-D

Answer 5

The next thing I'd do is add constructors and start overloading operators. Assignment operators, concatentation with +, conversion operator to char*, and stream insertion and extraction operators.

Answer 6

If only C supported operator overloading :(

How am I going to print my gstrings though?

Answer 7

I guess I will be using the plain write() functions instead of the printf family :( but how will I do formatted input/output

Answer 8

Ah, C, not C++ - my mistake ;)
So, in lieu of operators, you'll need standalone functions for concatenation and similar.
For printing, you could just printf("String: %s", myGString.data), or write a new function printfgstring that can take a gstring as its sole argument, or even decomposes a variable argument list and gets the c-string out of your gstring struct.