🚀 go-pugleaf

"Nathan Myers, http://www.cantrip.org/" <ncm@cantrip.org> wrote:

>Automatic conversions can be a problem in general, but the problems 
>with automatic conversions to a numeric type are ridiculous.  
>Compatibility with C has its downside. 
>
>As a side note...  The problem with automatic conversions is not
>only that the conversion may be called unexpectedly; the 
>possibility of the conversion affects overloading, so it may 
>force you to add "unnecessary" casts to guide the compiler to 
>the correct choice of function to call.

Sounds like another reason to permit the keyword "explicit" to apply to
conversion operators. I really don't see why the committee is so
resistant to this concept. I think the following would be a perfectly
satisfactory usage:

   class istream : public ...
   {
     ...
     explicit operator bool() const;
     ...
   };

   void f()
   {
     while (bool(cin))
       // do something
   }

Its clear. Its easy to remember. Its clean. Same would work for
auto_ptr<>.

-------------------------------------------------------------
Pablo Halpern                   phalpern@truffle.ultranet.com

I am self-employed. Therefore, my opinions *do* represent 
those of my employer.
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