Question

#ifndef ASSETS_H_INCLUDED
#define ASSETS_H_INCLUDED
#include <vector>
#include string.h>

const int ID_Max = 100;
typedef char ID[ID_Max];

struct node;

struct people{
std::vector<ID> T_ID;
std::vector<node*> Nodes;
people(ID t, node* person){
    T_ID.push_back(t);
    Nodes.push_back(person);
}
people(){}
};

struct node {
ID T_ID;
node* Parent;
people* leftChildren;
node* rightChild;
node(ID t, node* p, node* l, node* r) :I_ID(t), Parent(p), rightChild(r) 
{leftChildren = new people(); }
};

#endif // ASSETS_H_INCLUDED

My problem is this it is interpreting ID as a char pointer when in the constructor so this is the constructor people::people(char*, node*) when I want people::people(char[ID_Max], node*) same for node. If you have advise it would be very appreciated.

Answer 1

If you write a function signature with an array type in it, it’s the same as using a pointer, e.g. this:

void f(char p[]);

is the same as this:

void f(char *p);

That looks like it’s the root of your problem here. You might be better off with e.g. a std::array<char,ID_Max> (in C++11), or a std::vector<char> (in C++98). You can then get a pointer to the start of the contiguous memory it contains using &cont[0]. As a minor nit, I seem to recall that the memory for vector wasn’t strictly guaranteed to be contiguous in C++98, but it always was contiguous in practice (you could rely on it). The wording was fixed in C++03.