Some questions about strings

[Denis]

I have a few questions about how strings are stored.

- First, is there any difference between string, wstring and 
dstring? For example, a 3-byte Unicode character literal can be 
assigned to a variable of any of these types, then printed, etc, 
without errors.

- Are the characters of a string stored in memory by their 
Unicode codepoint(s), as opposed to some other encoding?

- Assuming that the answer to the first question is "no 
difference", do strings always allocate 4 bytes per codepoint?

- Can a series of codepoints, appropriately padded to the 
required width, and terminated by a null character, be directly 
assigned to a string WITHOUT GOING THROUGH A DECODING / ENCODING 
TRANSLATION?

The last question gets to the heart of what I'd ultimately like 
to accomplish and avoid.

Thanks for your help.