Converting ROBOTC Strings to C Strings (char pointers)

VEX V5 General Discussion Technical Discussion
#1

As my team is still using ROBOTC for now, I have been trying to experiment around with making some of our code easier to use, specifically by putting the instructions for our Pre-Autonomous LCD code in an array. In short, I found that


(char *)"this is a string"

will produce a compiler error, whereas


char *variable = "this is a string;

does not. Type punning (in a weird way) however, works Examples below:


// Doesn't work, "**Error**:Invalid cast type from 'string' to 'long'"
char *foo = (char *)"bar";

// Works... oddly
char *foo = "bar";

// Also works, I guess because the 'string' type is really a 20-byte integer of sorts. However, it is unsightly and confusing
char *foo = (char *)&"bar";

// Arrays of strings don't work though, "**Error**:Illegal assign of char string to a non-pointer value"
char *strings] = {
  "foo",
  "bar",
}

// One hack for arrays and structs of strings
// Compiler complains about embedded '='s
char *rstocs;
char *strings] = {
  rstocs = "foo",
  rstocs = "bar",
}

// Another hack for arrays and structs of strings
// Compiler complains of possible illegal use of '&' operand
char *strings] = {
  (char *)&"foo",
  (char *)&"bar",
}

// Best solution right now is probably with a macro
#define cstr(S) ((char *)&(S))
char *strings] = {
  cstr("foo"),
  cstr("bar"),
}

Either way, no programmer should have to dig for hacks like these. Please fix it.

#2