Non-ASCII characters - conversion from std::string to char*

Question

I have a string with non-ASCII characters, for example std::string word ("żółć"); or std::string word ("łyżwy"); I need to convert it properly to const char * in order to call system(my_String_As_A_Const_Char_Pointer);

I'm working on Linux.

How can I do it?

Answer 1

You can use the std::string::c_str member function. It will return a const char * that can be used in functions that accept that type of argument. Here's an example:

int main(int, char*[]) {
    std::string word("żółć");
    const char* x = word.c_str();
    std::cout << x;
}

And here's a live example.