diff --git a/tinyxml2Toolkit.cpp b/tinyxml2Toolkit.cpp
index 9c92026..0bab3ea 100644
--- a/tinyxml2Toolkit.cpp
+++ b/tinyxml2Toolkit.cpp
@@ -129,7 +129,7 @@ XMLElement *tinyxml2::XMLElementEncodeArray(XMLDocument *doc, const void *array,
     gchar *compressed_array = g_new(gchar, compressed_size);
 
     // encoded string will hold the base64 encoding of the array
-    gchar *encoded_array = nullptr;
+    const gchar *encoded_array = nullptr;
 
     // zlib  compress ((Bytef *dest, uLongf *destLen, const Bytef *source, uLong sourceLen));
     if ( Z_OK == compress((Bytef *)compressed_array, &compressed_size,
@@ -153,7 +153,6 @@ XMLElement *tinyxml2::XMLElementEncodeArray(XMLDocument *doc, const void *array,
 
     // free temporary array
     g_free(compressed_array);
-    g_free(encoded_array);
 
     return newelement;
 }