Why the error

Hi im kinda new to c++ and I can't seem to fix this compile error.
insert

Code:

---


char String::c_str()
{
  char* cs;
  cs  = new char[length+1];
  strcpy(cs,first);
  return cs;
}

---

I am trying to make a function that takes a String and converts it into a c-style string.
I keep getting this error though " invalid conversion from 'char*' to 'char'"
How come this happens and how can it be fixed.

Thank you all who attempt to help.

Code:

---

char String::c_str()
{
  char* cs;
  cs  = new char[length+1];
  strcpy(cs,first);
  return cs;
}

---

There's your invalid conversion.

The idea that a c_str function should allocate an unmanaged string buffer doesn't look good, though.

More commonly this should look like:

Code:

---

const char* String::c_str() const
{
  return first;
}

---

All the const's so that the user wouldn't be able to mess around with the internal buffer.

If they now want to store that into a dynamically allocated char array, that's entirely up to them to do in the calling code.

Otherwise, most often you'd use the c_str method like this:

Code:

---

String s("filename");
std::ofstream fout(s.c_str());

---

When done your way, that would be a memory leak.

Your return type should be char * for this function as that is the type of cs.

Are you sure you want to return a copy like that? It could be hard to know when cs was deallocated. Make sure you don't leak memory in your string class!

Thank you both for the help. It is working fine now.