I'm trying to do this:
const char *p = "/home/paul";
dp = opendir(*p);
But that fails with the following error:
passing argument 1 of 'opendir' makes pointer from integer without a cast
I'm at a loss here, as far as I know what I'm attempting is perfectly valid. After all, I'm passing a const char to a function who's input is a const char. What am I doing wrong?
The opendir() function accepts a const char * argument, but you're sending it a const char. *p dereferences the value pointed to by p, and returns the first character in the array, which is "/". So the result of *p is the const char value "/".
p however is a const char *, so change that to:
dp = opendir(p);
Your code is failing because you are going indirect through p:
dp = opendir(*p);
Because opendir takes a char * as an argument, and you are telling opendir to look for that char * in the spot where p is pointing, opendir is using "/home/paul" as its char *.
But p is the exact value opendir wants. Instead, say:
dp = opendir(p);
and everything will be smooth as glass.
const char *p = "/home/paul";
dp = opendir(*p);
the declaration const char *p = "/home/paul"; means that 'p' is pointing to the start of the string where p is essentially an address in memory where the string is.
when you write *p it means you are accessing the content of where p points which is the first character in the string, namely '/'
