Passing filename as a string

Hi, me again!

I have this code:

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?

Code:

---

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

---

Thanks!