Hello, I'm working on a project where im maintaining a list of directory names by saving them inside of a vector for use later. The vector is declared locally within the function. The problem I'm having is that everytime i push a new name into the vector its not maintaing any of the other things i know should have been stored. Here is a snippet of the code (this code is part of a while loop that i have omitted):

vector<char*> directories;    // a list of subdirectories for a given directory

if(FindFileData.dwFileAttributes & FILE_ATTRIBUTE_DIRECTORY)
{
  char temp[256];
  strcpy(temp, FindFileData.cFileName);
  directories.push_back((char*)temp);   // store the name of the file in the vector
}

 for(vector<char*>::iterator iter = directories.begin(); iter != directories.end(); iter++)
 {
    cout << *iter << endl;   // THIS line only prints the last element in the vector
 }

If you're already using std::vector, you should use std::string as well. Include <string>, and instead of a char*, use a std::string. The problem you're having is a classic one, where you're simply remembering a pointer to a bunch of characters, not the characters themselves. Your characters, appropriately named "temp", are getting lost, but your pointer to those characters remains.

std::string, however, actually remembers the characters themselves, copies all characters when necessary, and other such basic string utilities. Here's your code, rewritten with std::string:


vector<string> directories; // a list of subdirectories for a given directory

if(FindFileData.dwFileAttributes & FILE_ATTRIBUTE_DIRECTORY)
{
directories.push_back(FindFileData.cFileName); // store the name of the file in the vector
//note that the char* cFileName member will automatically get turned into a std::string.
//the std::string constructor will copy all the characters from the char* buffer
//into its own internal buffer, so no matter what happens to the original string
//of characters, the new std::string will remember the data
}

for(vector<string>::iterator iter = directories.begin(); iter != directories.end(); iter++)
{
cout << *iter << endl; // THIS line only prints the last element in the vector
}

if(FindFileData.dwFileAttributes & FILE_ATTRIBUTE_DIRECTORY){  // This is where your problem is. temp will be destroyed when exiting the  // scope. So the string pointed to in the array is no longer valid.  char temp[256];  strcpy(temp, FindFileData.cFileName);  // You are not storing a copy of temp here but a pointer to your  // temporary array that gets destroyed.  directories.push_back((char*)temp);   // store the name of the file in the vector}

Try to use:
vector<std::string> directories;

instead of:
vector<char*> directories;

perhaps?

Thanks, changing the "char*" to "std::string" did the trick. Thank you for the help.