How do you convert void pointer to char pointer in C

c pointers void-pointers
Jimmy picture Jimmy · Aug 15, 2011 · Viewed 79.1k times · Source

Ok this has been become sooo confusing to me. I just don't know what is wrong with this assignment:

void *pa; void *pb;
char *ptemp; char *ptemp2; 

ptemp = (char *)pa;
ptemp2 = (char *)pb;

Can anyone tell me why I'm getting this error:

error: invalid conversion from ‘void*’ to ‘char*’

Answer

Armen Tsirunyan picture Armen Tsirunyan · Aug 15, 2011

Actually, there must be something wrong with your compiler(or you haven't told the full story). It is perfectly legal to cast a void* to char*. Furthermore, the conversion is implicit in C (unlike C++), that is, the following should compile as well

 char* pChar;
 void* pVoid;
 pChar = (char*)pVoid; //OK in both C and C++
 pChar = pVoid;        //OK in C, convertion is implicit

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