C++ open link with ShellExecute

Question

If I write like this:

    ShellExecute(NULL, "open", "www.google.com", NULL, NULL, SW_SHOWNORMAL);

Everything's okay and is as it has to be.

But I want so that user could enter a link where he wants to go.

std::cout<<"Enter the link: ";
            char link;
            std::cin>>link;
        ShellExecute(NULL, "open", link, NULL, NULL, SW_SHOWNORMAL);

In this case I get an invalid conversion from 'char' to 'const CHAR* error.

So, is there a way to do this properly?

Answer 1

Your code only gets one character in as the link. You need to make link a type able to hold the value of the link and also read stdio in. Making link a std::string will do this but then you need to take care of how it is passed to ShellExecute

std::cout<<"Enter the link: ";
std::string link;
std::cin>>link;
ShellExecute(NULL, "open", link.c_str(), NULL, NULL, SW_SHOWNORMAL);

Answer 2

You should declare your input as char*

char *link = new char[2048];

...
delete[] link;

The const char* in ShellExecute is just a promise that it won't change the input. After changing the declaration, everything should work as expected.