Question

I have a method that requires a const char pointer as input (not null terminated). This is a requirement of a library (TinyXML) I’m using in my project. I get the input for this method from a string.c_str() method call.

Does this char pointer need to be deleted? The string goes out of scope immediately after the call completes; so the string should delete it with its destructor call, correct?

Answer 1

The char array returned by string.c_str() is null terminated. If tinyXML’s function takes a not null terminated char* buffer, then your probably gonna get some unexpected behaviour.

const char* c_str ( ) const;

Get C string equivalent

Generates a null-terminated sequence
of characters (c-string) with the same
content as the string object and
returns it as a pointer to an array of
characters.

A terminating null character is
automatically appended.

No, it does not need to be released. String’s destructor does that for you.

The returned array points to an
internal location with the required
storage space for this sequence of
characters plus its terminating
null-character, but the values in this
array should not be modified in the
program and are only granted to remain
unchanged until the next call to a
non-constant member function of the
string object.

Source