From: Paul Brannan <pbrannan@...>
Date: 2002-10-25T01:54:10+09:00
Subject: Re: rb_gc_register_address problem

On Wed, Oct 23, 2002 at 10:59:49PM +0900, William Djaja Tjokroaminata wrote:
> Actually if there is concern that str is left allocated, I am wondering
> why we have a vector of char* to begin with; isn't this mixing C++ with
> C?  Why don't you just have a C array of char* or a vector of
> strings?  For example,

No, this is not mixing C++ with C; a char* is just as much C++ as it is
C.  The trick is knowing when to use them, and I think this case is
justified.

I can't use a C array of char*, because a C array is not easily
resizable.

I can't use a vector of strings (*), because I need to pass this data to
function that someone else wrote with a signature that looks like:
  void foo(int & argc, char ** argv);

I can easily pass a vector<char*> to foo() with:
  std::vector<char *> args;
  ...
  int argc = args.size();
  foo(argc, &args[0]);

The performance constraints the C++ standard puts on a vector almost
100% guarantees this to work portably.

Paul