i think you may have misunderstood the standard - data() will always return a valid pointer, but the pointer returned may be invalidated by any number of functi

i think you may have misunderstood the standard - data() will always return a valid pointer, but the pointer returned may be invalidated by any number of functions: string s; s.reserve(50); char * p = s.data(); // ok so far s.reserve(100); // now p may be invalid