Yes, that could work too, but in my opinion, only unnecessarily complicates things. I want the pointer (actually, that to what it's pointing to) to be referenc

Yes, that could work too, but in my opinion, only unnecessarily complicates things. I want the pointer (actually, that to what it's pointing to) to be referenced as const in all cases, except when I create a copy or delete that copy, in which case I then explicitly recast them as not-const. That's just two tiny exceptions in code I have to write anyways. Such as it is, I would only consider a union of them if I'd actually need const/non-const 50/50 of the time, but my current use case is more like 98/2. Apart from that, I'm guessing you're from a C++ background, as there are no classes in C? (and also, if you use C++, it's recommended to use "delete" instead of "free", since the latter is a C function) EDIT: Actually, it's only one exception/re-cast, when I delete it, as no compiler would complain about saving a char* in a const char* data type.