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From: Hyman Rosen <hymie@prolifics.com>
Subject: Re: Array of Variant Records Question...
Date: 1999/09/13
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Date: 1999-09-13T19:29:45+00:00
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Richard D Riehle <laoXhai@ix.netcom.com> writes:
> One of things I do not like about the current C++ standard is the
> kludge that permits "cast away const".  Would not want this in Ada.

It's not a kludge, any more than unchecked conversion is. I suspect
that C++'s greatest need for const_cast comes from having to support
old C libraries which did not use const in their interfaces. You
have a function which takes a 'char *' rather than a 'char const *'
parameter, but the documentation of the function promises that it
leaves the contents unchanged. You have a 'char const *' that you
need to pass to this function. So you cast away const.