Question

I’m receiving a c-string as a parameter from a function, but the argument I receive is going to be destroyed later. So I want to make a copy of it.

Here’s what I mean:

class MyClass
{
private:
 const char *filename;

public:
 void func (const char *_filename);
}

void MyClass::func (const char *_filename)
{
 filename = _filename; //This isn't going to work
}

What I want to achieve is not simply assign one memory address to another but to copy contents. I want to have filename as “const char*” and not as “char*”.

I tried to use strcpy but it requires the destination string to be non-const.

Is there a way around? Something without using const_cast on filename?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Use a std::string to copy the value, since you are already using C++. If you need a const char* from that, use c_str().

class MyClass
{
private:
    std::string filename;
public:
    void setFilename(const char *source)
    {
        filename = std::string(source);
    }

    const char *getRawFileName() const
    {
        return filename.c_str();
    }
}