Thread: restrictions on pointers using const

Hey guys,
SO...I was feeling confident in my understanding of the various uses of const with pointer declarations to restrict how they function...I was doing fine until I came across a bit of code that I modified thinking that a const pointer to const would do fine...tell me what I'm missing here...here's the full code minus the preprocessor directives and I'm using the std namespace:

Code:

//returns a pointer to a string element
string * ptrToElement(const vector<string> * const pVec, int element);

int main()
{
    vector<string> inventory;
    inventory.push_back("sword");
    inventory.push_back("shield");

    cout << "Sending the object pointed to by a return pointer:\n";
    cout << *(ptrToElement(&inventory, 1)) << endl;
    return 0;
}

string * ptrToElement(const vector<string> * const pVec, int i)
{
    return &((*pVec)[i]);
}

Ok...so...the const pointer to const was my addition and the logic behind it is I just don't see any change to the value of the element in the function...so why do I get a compile error? Any insight would be very very helpful...even looking over it now, all I'm doing is accessing a value...I'm not altering it...anyways, any help would be great. Thanks, Chap