It won't automatically convert (thank god). You'll have to use the method c_str() to get the C string version.

std::string str = "string"; const char *cstr = str.c_str();

Note that it returns a const char * ; you aren't allowed to change the C-style string returned by c_str() . If you want to process it you'll have to copy it first:

std::string str = "string"; char *cstr = new char[str.length() + 1]; strcpy(cstr, str.c_str()); // do stuff delete [] cstr;

Or in modern C++: