[Mono-devel-list] reading char * from extern function

[A Rafael D Teixeira]

>From: Marcus <mathpup at mylinuxisp.com>
>
>When calling into existing libraries, it is not feasible to alter the 
>source
>code to change their memory-management policies.
>
>If I create "QObject* obj", then "name = obj->callName()" will return a 
>"const
>char*".  At this point, it is not permissible to call "free(name)".
>
> > Well, thats true. Functions should simply duplicate the string before
> > they return if needed. Else you have a memory leak which is impossible
> > to avoid.

In that case you have to write wrappers that copy the returned buffer to 
some memory that can be freed, either in C/C++ code using memory form malloc 
or in C# code using memory from the gc heap.

Happy developments,

Rafael Teixeira
Brazilian Polymath
Mono, MonoQLE Hacker

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