Re: Accessor Functions (getter) for C String (Character Array) Members

Ok, so I am working on this for school. I am building a model
business application in the console using C++.

The application is modeled as a database/cashier program. I have a
class called BookData that is supposed to hold a number of character
arrays and a few other variables.

Here are my private members:

char _isbn[14];
char _title[51];
char _author[31];
char _publisher[31];
char _date[11];
int _quantity;
double _cost;
double _price;

I am supposed to have public accessor and mutator functions that
'get' and set' each private member of the class. I was surprised to
learn this, but apparently you cannot return an array from a
function in C++

Normally I know I would write an accessor function for the last
three similar to something like this:

double BookData::getCost()
{
      return _cost;
}

I am not sure how I should go about doing this for the character
arrays. This is for a C++ course and I believe I am supposed to
keep the c strings and not use strings from the standard libraries.
I cannot remember but I think that you are supposed to use pointers
to do this somehow. I tried but the syntax seems clumsy and I am
getting errors. Any tips would be most appreciated.

This is supposed to work by booting up and filling a dynamically
allocated array of BookData class objects from a delimited data
file. I need these 'setter' / 'getter' functions for accessing and
manipulating these values to add other functionality. I am going to
be working on this for the rest of tonight and all tomorrow. So
anyone that can give me any advice on this subject would be most
helpful.