To reinforce the sibling comment's point: A very common pattern is when a const variable resides in non-writable memory (happens all the time in embedded), - if

To reinforce the sibling comment's point: A very common pattern is when a const variable resides in non-writable memory (happens all the time in embedded), - if you attempt to write to it, you trigger a fault. So if you cast away constness to conform to some API and then read the value, everything is fine (aside from questionable API design, of course). Modifying the value is another story, though.