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

I'd not construct a std::string and ship a pointer to the internal buffers across dll boundaries. Instead I would use either a simple char buffer (statically or dynamically allocated). After the call to the dll returns, I'd let a std::string take over the result. It just feels intuitively wrong to let callees write in an internal class buffer.