The `basic_string` class was apparently designed as a general purpose container, as I cannot find any text-specific function in its specification except for the `c_str()` function. Just out of curiosity, have you ever used the `std::basic_string` container class for anything else than storing human-readable character data?

The reason I ask this is because one often has to choose between making something general or specific. The designers chose to make the `std::basic_string` class general, but I doubt it is ever used that way.