Re: Conversion, operator overloading

From:
=?windows-1252?Q?Daniel_Kr=FCgler?= <daniel.kruegler@googlemail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++.moderated
Date:
Tue, 11 Dec 2012 16:42:51 CST
Message-ID:
<ka892p$36n$1@dont-email.me>
Am 11.12.2012 21:30, schrieb TS:

recently I got a problem related to conversion and operator overloading.
With the code below

class A {};
A operator +(const A& lhs, const A& rhs) { ... };

class B {
public:
     operator A() { ... }
     operator int() { ... }
};

int main() {
     B ba, bb;
     ba + bb; // error

     short val = (short) ba;

     return 0;
}

I got the error from gcc:
error: ambiguous overload for ?operator+? in ?ba + bb?
note: candidates are: operator+(int, int) <built-in>
note: A operator+(const A&, const A&)


Yes, this error is to be expected, because your class does provide two
conversions to types that provide support for binary operator+.

I'm wondering how I can get rid of the error. Specifically, how can I
make the compiler not consider the built-in type when considering
operator overloading? The code in main is sort of legacy code, and can't
be changed, but we are free to play with class A and B.


Don't provide these two conversion functions. One possible alternative
is to let B derive from A, because base classes have higher priorities
in the code context. While derivation is a quick-fix, it requires
further analysis, whether this is the "right" approach. If only
operator+ is involved, an alternative solution could be to let B provide
an operator+ overload that is implemented with some member of A.

HTH & Greetings from Bremen,

Daniel Kr?gler

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