C++ style cast from unsigned char * to const char *

I have:

unsigned char *foo();
std::string str;
str.append(static_cast<const char*>(foo()));

The error: invalid static_cast from type ‘unsigned char*’ to type ‘const char*’

What's the correct way to cast here in C++ style?

char * and const unsigned char * are considered unrelated types. So you want to use reinterpret_cast.

But if you were going from const unsigned char* to a non const type you'd need to use const_cast first. reinterpret_cast cannot cast away a const or volatile qualification.

Try reinterpret_cast

unsigned char *foo();
std::string str;
str.append(reinterpret_cast<const char*>(foo()));

reinterpret_cast

unsigned char* is basically a byte array and should be used to represent raw data rather than a string generally. A unicode string would be represented as wchar_t*

According to the C++ standard a reinterpret_cast between unsigned char* and char* is safe as they are the same size and have the same construction and constraints. I try to avoid reintrepret_cast even more so than const_cast in general.

If static cast fails with what you are doing you may want to reconsider your design because frankly if you are using C++ you may want to take advantage of what the "plus plus" part offers and use string classes and STL (aka std::basic_string might work better for you)

You would need to use a reinterpret_cast<> as the two types you are casting between are unrelated to each other.

Too many comments to make to different answers, so I'll leave another answer here.

You can and should use reinterpret_cast<>, in your case

str.append(reinterpret_cast<const char*>(foo()));

because, while these two are different types, the 2014 standard, chapter 3.9.1 Fundamental types [basic.fundamental] says there is a relationship between them:

> Plain char, signed char and unsigned char are three distinct types, collectively called narrow character types. A char, a signed char, and an unsigned char occupy the same amount of storage and have the same alignment requirements (3.11); that is, they have the same object representation.

(selection is mine)

Here's an available link: https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/types#Character_types

Using wchar_t for Unicode/multibyte strings is outdated: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17871880/should-i-use-wchar-t-when-using-utf-8

> Hope it help. :) >

const unsigned attribName = getname();
const unsigned attribVal = getvalue();
const char *attrName=NULL, *attrVal=NULL;
attrName = (const char*) attribName;
attrVal = (const char*) attribVal;