Is it safe to assign a pointer to a constant?
Neither of those is safe:
The first one needs to be const char, as you cannot actually modify the C-strings.
The second one doesn't assign b to be the address of some constant 3, instead it assigns b to point to the memory address 0x3, which you probably don't have access to.
The first one needs to be const char, as you cannot actually modify the C-strings.
The second one doesn't assign b to be the address of some constant 3, instead it assigns b to point to the memory address 0x3, which you probably don't have access to.
First line should be rewritten as:
What happens is that you declare an array of two pointers to const char.
The two pointers, namely a[0] and a[1] will point to the string literals
It is important to remember that a[0] and a[1] are not arrays. They are pointers. And the arrays they point to cannot be changed, hence the const was added for correctness.
The second case shouldn't compile without a cast in C++ (the C language is more permissive).
Even so, it is not a good idea to give the pointer values yourself.
Ninja'd by firedraco, but posting anyway.
const char *a[2] = {"hello", "world"};What happens is that you declare an array of two pointers to const char.
The two pointers, namely a[0] and a[1] will point to the string literals
"hello" and "world" respectively.It is important to remember that a[0] and a[1] are not arrays. They are pointers. And the arrays they point to cannot be changed, hence the const was added for correctness.
The second case shouldn't compile without a cast in C++ (the C language is more permissive).
int *b = reinterpret_cast<int *> (3);Even so, it is not a good idea to give the pointer values yourself.
Ninja'd by firedraco, but posting anyway.
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