How to transform const wchar_t type to LPTSTR (C++)

Question

I am trying to modify an old plugin to create a new one (in C++ and Visual Studio 2019). When I compile I get the following error marking TEXT in red.

E0144: A value of type "const wchar_t *" cannot be used to initialize an entity of type LPTSTR

LPTSTR process_name = TEXT("rFactor2.exe");
module_address = GetModuleBase(process_name, pID);

I investigated and saw a similar post suggesting this:

LPTSTR process_name = foo(TEXT("rFactor2.exe"));

And now I get the following error:

E0020: identifier "foo" is not defined

Could someone tell me how can I create the variable in LPTSTR format (it's the type that GetModuleBase expects)?

question from:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/65641326/how-to-transform-const-wchar-t-type-to-lptstr-c

Answer 1

LPTSTR is defined as TCHAR*. What you want is a const pointer. You can use LPCTSTR, which is defined as TCHAR const*:

LPCTSTR process_name = TEXT("rFactor2.exe");

If your function requires a non-const pointer, you can create a copy:

TCHAR process_name[] = TEXT("rFactor2.exe");

Note that life time of the string literal and the array are not the same.

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it's the type that GetModuleBase expects

Considering you are working with legacy code, it is possible that your functions take non-const pointers and don't modify them. If you are certain about that and can't go ahead and fix those function signatures to be const-correct, you can use a type cast. Do this only as a last resort:

auto process_name = const_cast<LPTSTR>(TEXT("rFactor2.exe"));

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Recommended reading:

• C++ deprecated conversion from string constant to 'char*'
• Sell me on const correctness
• Is TCHAR still relevant?