C++ “conversion loses qualifiers” compile error

Question

I ran into an interesting problem while debugging SWIG typemaps today. Anyone care to enlighten me why Visual C++ 2008 throws a \"conversion loses qualifiers\" error when co

Answer 1

Say you had the following function:

void test(  const char*& pRef)
{
    static const char somedata[] = { 'a' ,'b', 'c', '\0'};
    pRef = somedata;
}

If you passed in a non-const char*, then when test() returned the compiler would have lost the fact that what p is pointing to is const.

It's essentially the same reason as given in this C++ FAQ Lite question (dealing with pointers-to-pointers rather than pointer references):

• http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite/const-correctness.html#faq-18.17