ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

String (computer science)

A string is like a chain of letters that a computer program can work with. Just like how you can hold a string of beads or a string of balloons, a program can hold a string of letters.

Let’s say you want to make a program that asks someone for their name. The program can store that name as a string. This string could have letters like “J”, “o”, “h”, “n”. These letters are called characters.

A string can be made up of as many characters as you want, and they can be in any order. So, you can make a string with the letters “taco”, or “123lalala456”, or “!@#$%^&*()”.

One cool thing about strings is that you can add them together to make a new string. For example, if you have a string with “hello” and another string with “world”, you can add them together to create a new string with “hello world”.

Strings are used in lots of different computer programs – think of them like beads on a necklace. They’re easy to work with and can help programs keep track of information!