Re: operator==() of std::string and user-defined conversion

From:
"James Kanze" <james.kanze@gmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++.moderated
Date:
Wed, 31 Jan 2007 08:08:30 CST
Message-ID:
<1170239706.545379.219900@a34g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>
korusef@gmail.com wrote:

What's so special about operator==() for std::string, that it can't be
used in the example below?

#include <iostream>

struct T {}; bool operator==(T const&, T const&) { return true; }

//typedef std::string T; //a == a and e == a fails


I'm not sure I understand. If you define the struct, the
typedef here is illegal. Do you mean that if you use the
typedef instead of the struct, the comparisons mentionned fail
to compile?

struct A
{
   operator T() { return T(); }
};

int main(int const argc, char const* argv[])
{
   A a = A();
   T e = a;
   e == e;
   e == a;
   a == a;
   return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}


Supposing the answer to my question above is yes, the answer is
simple: operator== for string is a template function. Which
means that argument deduction is applied to it, and only
instantiations resulting from successful argument deductions are
included in the overload set. Argument deduction generally only
considers a very limited set of conversions: things like array
to pointer, or adding const. User defined conversions are not
considered.

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