Question

I am receiving this error invalid conversion from ‘const char*’ to ‘char*’ from this code:

// in account.h
struct account {
    char* get_name ( ) const;
    char name[MAX_NAME_SIZE+1];
};
//in account.cxx
char* account::get_name ( ) const
{
    return name;
}

Can someone please help me?

Answer 1

The return type should be const char* as well:

const char* get_name ( ) const;

It is because in a const member function, this pointer becomes a const, as a result of which every member of the class becomes const, which means name which is declared as char[N], becomes const char[N] in a const member function. const char[N] can converts into only const char*, hence you need to make the return type const char*.