Returning a C string stored in a class

Question

I am trying to print out a C string that is stored in a class by returning the value using an accessor function.

Thanks for any help!

This is the error I get when I compile:

cstringClass.cpp: In member function 'char Foo::get_name()':
cstringClass.cpp:37:9: error: invalid conversion from 'char*' to 'char' [-fpermi
ssive]
  return name;
         ^

Here is the code:

#include <iostream>
#include <cstring>
using namespace std;

class Foo
{
    public:
        void set_name(char a[]);
        char get_name();

    private:
        char name[10];

};

int main()
{

    Foo bar;
    char a[10] = "Test";

    bar.set_name(a);

    cout << bar.get_name();


    return 0;
}

void Foo::set_name(char a[])
{
    strcpy(name, a);
}

char Foo::get_name()
{
    return name;
}

Answer 1

As the error message states, your get_name() function doesn't return the appropriate type, which should be char* based on the data it returns, which is name[10]. char returns only 1 byte of data and name[10] has 10. Please see the corrected code below.

#include <iostream>
#include <cstring>
using namespace std;

class Foo
{
public:
    void set_name(char a[]);
    char *get_name(); //<-- correction

private:
    char name[10];

};

int main()
{

    Foo bar;
    char a[10] = "Test";

    bar.set_name(a);

    cout << bar.get_name();


    return 0;
}

void Foo::set_name(char a[])
{
    strcpy(name, a);
}

char *Foo::get_name() //<-- correction
{
    return name;
}

Answer 2

So the error says:

cstringClass.cpp: In member function 'char Foo::get_name()':
                                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

And indeed:

        char get_name();

You declared get_name as returning a single char, not a pointer to a string. You probably meant char *get_name();.