# nlohmann::basic_json::string_t
```cpp
using string_t = StringType;
```
The type used to store JSON strings.
[RFC 8259](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8259) describes JSON strings as follows:
> A string is a sequence of zero or more Unicode characters.
To store objects in C++, a type is defined by the template parameter described below. Unicode values are split by the
JSON class into byte-sized characters during deserialization.
## Template parameters
`StringType`
: the container to store strings (e.g., `std::string`). Note this container is used for keys/names in objects, see
[object_t](object_t.md).
## Notes
#### Default type
With the default values for `StringType` (`std::string`), the default value for `string_t` is `#!cpp std::string`.
#### Encoding
Strings are stored in UTF-8 encoding. Therefore, functions like `std::string::size()` or `std::string::length()` return
the number of bytes in the string rather than the number of characters or glyphs.
#### String comparison
[RFC 8259](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8259) states:
> Software implementations are typically required to test names of object members for equality. Implementations that
> transform the textual representation into sequences of Unicode code units and then perform the comparison numerically,
> code unit by code unit, are interoperable in the sense that implementations will agree in all cases on equality or
> inequality of two strings. For example, implementations that compare strings with escaped characters unconverted may
> incorrectly find that `"a\\b"` and `"a\u005Cb"` are not equal.
This implementation is interoperable as it does compare strings code unit by code unit.
#### Storage
String values are stored as pointers in a `basic_json` type. That is, for any access to string values, a pointer of type
`string_t*` must be dereferenced.
## Examples
??? example
The following code shows that `string_t` is by default, a typedef to `#!cpp std::string`.
```cpp
--8<-- "examples/string_t.cpp"
```
Output:
```json
--8<-- "examples/string_t.output"
```
## Version history
- Added in version 1.0.0.