writing directly to std::string internal buffers

Question

I was looking for a way to stuff some data into a string across a DLL boundary. Because we use different compilers, all our dll interfaces are simple char*.

Is ther

Answer 1

As long as C++11 gives contiguous memory guaranties, in production practice this 'hacky' method is very popular:

std::string stringToFillIn(100, 0);
FunctionInDLL(stringToFillIn.data(), stringToFillIn.size());