C# 7 and .NET Core: Modern Cross-Platform Development - Second Edition

Chapter 4 - Using .NET Standard Types

1. What is the maximum number of characters that can be stored in a string?
   • The maximum size of a string variable is 2 GB or about 1 billion characters because each char variable uses 2 bytes due to the internal use of Unicode (UTF-16) encoding for characters.
2. When and why should you use a SecureString?
   • The string type leaves text data in memory for too long and it's too visible. The SecureString type encrypts the text and ensures that the memory is released immediately. WPF's PasswordBox control stores the password as a SecureString variable, and when starting a new process, the Password parameter must be a SecureString variable. For more discussion, visit:
   • http://stackoverflow.com/questions/141203/when-would-i-need-a-securestring-in-net ...