> Are those consts really necessary? Technically yes, initializing a plain char * from a const char * (from array decay) is a constraint violation (an error th

> Are those consts really necessary? Technically yes, initializing a plain char * from a const char * (from array decay) is a constraint violation (an error the standard requires the compiler to detect and complain about) even in C89. Many compilers will let you off with a warning though.