casting const char* to char*

[rolan]

I am writing a program in c++ using fluid with the FLTK libraries. I have a text_input widget in my main window, and when I try to access the value in the widget it returns a const char*.

I need to use this const char* as part of a filename and so I need to convert it to a char* (or some other usable form).

One guy said this is not possible in c++, but I'm assuming there must be some way to use this or else fluid would be fairly useless.

Thanks for any help you can give!

[newb16]

copy it to std::string like
std::string myValue = widget.getValue ();
and then do whatever you need with it.

[JosAH]

Copy the chars pointed to by that const char* to an ordinary char* and use that.

kind regards,

Jos

[eranws]

const_cast

there's some mechanism called const_cast.

see this link

[donbock]

there's some mechanism called const_cast.
see this link

Be careful with this. There might be a very important reason why it is a const pointer. For instance, if it is a pointer to read-only memory then you'll get a run-time exception if you try to write to it. The fully portable and guaranteed-to-work-no matter-what method is as JosAH suggested: allocate a large enough writeable char buffer ; copy the const buffer into it; and then use that local copy.

[JosAH]

The entire const business gets messier and messier; have a look at one of the latest proposals. I think Bjarne Stroustrup is on the wrong track.

kind regards,

Jos