If your application's core functionality is text editing (or something similar) you might have to use something like ICU anyway, complete with its own string ty

If your application's core functionality is text editing (or something similar) you might have to use something like ICU anyway, complete with its own string type and 30 megs of dlls. Or custom allocators on std::string if only memory allocation is critical. Or one of million other string classes (every freaking C++ library comes with one...) Or internal string implementation built specifically for your needs. Almost never would you drop back down to passing C-strings around though. That's just asking for buffer overflows and such.