That will get rid of the errors yes...But then it isn't the right type for subsequent calls. Essentially I want to take an existing contig and extend it using the graph, something like this:
int kSize = graph.getKmerSize();
std::string contig = seq.toString();
string seqRight = "", seqLeft = "";
int endDegreeLeft, endDegreeRight,lenSeqRight = 0, lenSeqLeft = 0;
float rightTotalCoverage = 0, leftTotalCoverage = 0, curCoverage = 0;
bool markDuringTraversal = false;//not sure if this should be true or false yet
auto left = graph.buildNode((char *)contig.c_str(),0);
auto right = graph.buildNode((char *)contig.c_str(),contig.length()-kSize);
graph.simplePathLongest_avance (left, DIR_INCOMING, lenSeqLeft,
endDegreeLeft, markDuringTraversal,
leftTotalCoverage, &seqLeft);
graph.simplePathLongest_avance (right, DIR_OUTCOMING, lenSeqRight,
endDegreeRight, markDuringTraversal,
rightTotalCoverage, &seqRight);