🚀 go-pugleaf

version: g++ 1.35.0
config: vax (ultrix 3.0)

problem: compiler reports ambiguous type conversion when attempting
   to pass a "String" to a member function of a subclass accepting
   a "char*".  The subclass's base class defines the same member function.

example:
#include <stream.h>
#include "String.h"

class z
   {
   void* v;
public:
   void set(void* a) {v = a;}
   void* get() {return v;}
   };

class x : public z
   {
public:
   void set(char* a="") {z::set(new String(a));}
   String get() {return *((String*)z::get());}
   };

class y : public x		// get rid of "public" to make it compile
   {
public:
   void set(char* a="") {x::set(a);}
   String get() {return x::get();}
   };


main()
{
   y a;

   a.set(String("hello, world"));
   cout << a.get() << "\n";
}

% g++ -g sambtype.cc
In function int main ():
ambtype.cc:31: ambiguous type conversion requested for method `set'

by making class "x" members non-public, it works fine.  Shouldn't
the declaration of the class "y" member override any possible confusion
with the member in class "x"?  I believe that the problem is more involved
than this demonstrates since the real code which produced the bug was
not fixed by removing the "public" keyword.

-Gregg Whitcomb			whitcomb@ic.berkeley.edu