Passing filename as a string

[qxcdfg]

Hi, me again!

I have this code:

char* getfilebits(char* filename)
{
	char* ptr;
	ifstream file (filename, ios::in|ios::binary); // open file for reading
	if (file.is_open()) // did it open?
	{
		ptr=new char[16]; // make space for data
		file.read(ptr, 16); //read data from file
		file.close(); // close file, it is needed no longer
		//return 0;
	}else{
		cout << "Could not open file" << endl;
		terminate();
	};
	return ptr;
};

It works, but the fact that I need to take filename as a char* bugs me. Is there any way to get ifstream to accept a string as a file name?

[vart]

char* getfilebits(const std::string& filename)
{
	char* ptr;
	ifstream file (filename.c_str(), ios::in|ios::binary); // open file for reading

[qxcdfg]

Thanks!