Creating an array out of a string - c++

Question

I'm new to C++ and I've encountered a problem... I can't seem to create an array of characters from a string using a for loop. For example, in JavaScript you would write something like this:
var arr = [];
function setString(s) {
for(var i = s.length - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
arr.push(s[i]);
}
return arr.join("");
}
setString("Hello World!"); //Returns !dlroW olleH
I know it's a bit complicated, I do have a little bit of background knowledge on how to do it but the syntax of it is still not too familiar to me.
Is there any way that I could do that in c++ using arrays?
Could I join the array elements into one string as I do in JavaScript?
It would be greately appreciated if you could help. Thanks in advance.
If anyone needs more information just tell me and I'll edit the post.
By the way, my code in c++ is really messy at the moment but I have an idea of what I'm doing... What I've tried is this:
function setString(s) {
string arr[s.size() - 1];
for(int i = s.size() - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
arr[i] = s.at(i); //This is where I get stuck at...
//I don't know if I'm doing something wrong or not.
}
}
It would be nice if someone told me what I'm doing wrong or what I need to put or take out of the code. It's a console application compiled in Code::Blocks

Answer 1

std::string has the c_str() method that returns a C style string, which is just an array of characters.
Example:
std::string myString = "Hello, World!";
const char *characters = myString.c_str();

Answer 2

The closest thing to a direct translation of your function:
string setString(string s) {
string arr;
for(int i = s.length() - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
arr.push_back(s[i]);
}
return arr;
}

Answer 3

A std::string is a dynamic array underneath a fairly thin wrapper. There is no need to copy character by character, as it will do it properly for you:
If the character array is null-terminated (that is, the last element is a '\0'):
const char* c = "Hello, world!"; // '\0' is implicit for string literals
std::string s = c; // this will copy the entire string - no need for your loop
If the character array is not null-terminated:
char c[4] = {'a', 'b', 'c', 'd'}; // creates a character array that will not work with cstdlib string functions (e.g. strlen)
std::string s(c, 4); // copies 4 characters from c into s - again, no need for your loop
If you cannot use std::string (e.g. if you are forced to use ANSI C):
const char* c = "Hello, World!";
// assume c2 is already properly allocated to strlen(c) + 1 and initialized to all zeros
strcpy(c2, c);
In your javascript example, you are reversing the string, which can be done easily enough:
std::string s = "Hello, world!";
std::string s1(s.rbegin(), s.rend());
Additionally, you can cut your iterations in half (for both C++ and Javascript) if you fix your loop (pseudo-code below):
string s = "Hello, world!"
for i = 0 to s.Length / 2
char t = s[i]
s[i] = s[s.Length - 1 - t]
s[s.Length - 1 - i] = t
Which will swap the ends of the string to reverse it. Instead of looping through N items, you loop through a maximum of N / 2 items.