Question

Pointers have always made me blank about the logic I intend to use in code, If someone can help me understand a few concepts that would be really helpful. Here’s a code snippet from my program,

vector <char> st; 
char *formatForHtml(string str, string htmlTag)
{ 
    string strBegin;
    strBegin = "<";
    strBegin.append(htmlTag);
    strBegin.append(">");
    strBegin.append(str);
    string strEnd = "</";
    strEnd.append(htmlTag);
    strEnd.append(">");
    strBegin.append(strEnd);
    st.resize(strBegin.size());
    for (int i =0;i <strBegin.size();i++) {
        st[i] = strBegin.at(i);
    }
    return &st[0];
}

In the code above if I have to return address of st[0], I have to write the function of type char *. I need to know the reason to do so, also if address is the integer value why can I not define function as an int type?

P.S. It’s a beginner level doubt.

Answer 1

I have to write the function of type ‘char *’ I need to know the reason to do so

There’s no reason to do so. Just return a std::string.

From the looks of your code, st is a std::vector<char>. Since std::vector has continuous memory, &st[0] is the address of the first char in the vector, and thus points to the not null-terminated string that the vector represents, which isn’t very helpful outside the function because you can’t find the length.