Date: Mon, 6 Sep 1999 19:09:19 +0200 (IST)
From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
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To: Manni Heumann <manfred DOT heumann AT uni-bielefeld DOT de>
cc: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: Annoying: const char * in Allegro
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On Mon, 6 Sep 1999, Manni Heumann wrote:

> The C library was also written in C. Nevertheless functions like printf take a 
> const char* as their first argument.

The library sources sometimes need to go to great lengths to do this, 
because the compiler doesn't like it when you take a const char * and 
pass it to a function that accepts a char *.  If a library function needs 
to call another library function, it might be a royal PITA to struggle 
with these problems.  Download djlsr202.zip and search for "unconst" to 
see what I mean.

This is what Shawn meant when he said that const tends to propagate 
through the entire source.