I got this error while coding a simple function. This is my function specification.
string studentName;
string courseTaken[3];
void setStudent(string, string[]);
void Student::setStudent(string n, string a[])
{
studentName= n;
courseTaken = a;
}
This is the error I have gotten:
incompatible types in assignment of string* to string [3] on this line courseTaken = a;
In my code, I never declared any pointer or char.
I don't quite understand what is going wrong here.
You can not assign array of strings string a[] to array courseTaken using = operator. The expression string a[] is equivalent to std::string*. That is why you get the compiler error.
This may be what you wanted:
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
class Student
{
public:
string studentName;
string courseTaken[3];
void setStudent(string n, string a[]);
};
void setStudent(string n, string a[]);
void Student::setStudent(string n, string a[])
{
studentName = n;
for(int i=0; i < sizeof(courseTaken)/sizeof(courseTaken[0]); i++)
courseTaken[i] = a[i];
}
int main()
{
Student student;
string courses[3] = {"Cobol","C++","Fortran"};
student.setStudent("Eva", courses);
for (int i = 0; i < 3; i++){
cout << student.courseTaken[i] << endl;
}
return 0;
}
Output:
Cobol
C++
Fortran
It seems you don't understand array decay mechanism of C-format arrays.
For many context, an array name will be explained as a pointer to the first element of the array. And this pointer is a prvalue which just like this pointer, you can NOT assign to it.
the "modern Cpp way"(C++11) is to use std::array, which overloaded the =operator and stores the size of the array so that it won't be decayed while passing to a function.
The second way is to pass the reference, with a template you can ensure the array's size, then use std::memcpy. And you can add a parameter stores the array's size, and then you can use memcpy too.
I hope you use the first way, don't forget -std=c++11
This is because you are passing an array to a variable that's why this error occurs. To solve this problem you may use pointer in argument to solve this problem. Change your function to this.
void Student::setStudent(string n, string* a)
{
studentName= n;
courseTaken = a;
}
std::arrayorstd::vector. This is not C.void Student::setStudent(string n, string *a). By "this is not C", @user202729 means that you should use C++ containers instead of C arrays, which has some unintuitive things about it especially when you try to pass it to a function. He/she is likely referring to the common bad practice of teaching C stuff before C++ stuff.