Question

I’ve appends some elements in my list

std::list<std::string> dirList2;
//Code
dirList2.push_back(findData.cFileName);

copy(dirList2.begin(), dirList2.end(),std::ostream_iterator<std::string>  (std::cout,"\n"));

Everything work, i can view this items,

Now i want to assign the first elem of my list to a char* .

Can someone help me please ? i’dont know how to do it

Answer 1

If I understood well what you want then you can do it like this:

const char *s = dirList2.front().c_str();

Be careful, though. The C string which variable s points to is owned by the string object sitting on your list. If the list goes out of scope or you remove the element from your list, then the C string will be released by the std::string‘s destructor and your s pointer will not be valid.

If you want to manipulate the C string beyond the liftime of the std::string object than you can do sth. like this:

const char *s = strdup(dirList2.front().c_str());

But it’s usually better to use std::string instead of raw C pointers, unless you have no choice.