Re: Implicit conversion and method call

From:
Victor Bazarov <v.Abazarov@comAcast.net>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Thu, 30 Apr 2009 11:25:44 -0400
Message-ID:
<gtcft7$5os$1@news.datemas.de>
Vladimir Jovic wrote:

Victor Bazarov wrote:

GeeRay wrote:

Hi all,
 how can I create a template class to decorate a type and use it as
the type itself?

For example:

I want to do this:

#include <iostream>
class A
{
public:
    A(){};
    virtual ~A(){};
    void foo(){ std::cout << "foo" << std::endl;};
};

template<class T>
class B
{
public:
    B(){};
    virtual ~B(){};
        operator T(){return instance;};
private:
    T instance;
};

int main(int argn, char* argv[])
{
    B<A> b();


Drop the parentheses, otherwise you're declaring a function. My
answer assumes that the definition of 'b' is like this:

      B<A> b;

    b.foo();
}

Is it possible?


No. For the member function calls (like the . you use to access the
'foo' member) the conversions are not considered. You can overload
the member access operator for pointers (pretending that your 'B'
class is a pointer), like so:

   template<class T> class B { ...

      T* operator->() { return &instance; }
   };

, then you could write something like

   B<A> b;
   b->foo();

which is not necessarily the best syntax, of course...


Another happy solution:
static_cast< A >(b).foo();


Or just

      A(b).foo();

will probably work just as well. But the point is that the OP didn't
want to remember that 'A' was involved. So, your operator() solution is
a bit better in that respect.

[..]


V
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