I want to get the data pointer of a string variable(like string::c_str() in c++) to pass to a c function and I found this doesn't work:
package main
/*
#include <stdio.h>
void Println(const char* str) {printf("%s
", str);}
*/
import "C"
import (
"unsafe"
)
func main() {
s := "hello"
C.Println((*C.char)(unsafe.Pointer(&(s[0]))))
}
Compile error info is: 'cannot take the address of s[0]'. This will be OK I but I doubt it will cause unneccesary memory apllying. Is there a better way to get the data pointer?
C.Println((*C.char)(unsafe.Pointer(&([]byte(s)[0]))))
There are ways to get the underlying data from a Go string to C without copying it. It will not work as a C string because it is not a C string. Your printf will not work even if you manage to extract the pointer even if it happens to work sometimes. Go strings are not C strings. They used to be for compatibility when Go used more libc, they aren't anymore.
Just follow the cgo manual and use C.CString
. If you're fighting for efficiency you'll win much more by just not using cgo because the overhead of calling into C is much bigger than allocating some memory and copying a string.