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From: steve@taumet.com (Stephen Clamage)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: Overloading of functions with semi-identical signatures
Message-ID: <742@taumet.com>
Date: 22 May 91 15:59:56 GMT
References: <14679@ector.cs.purdue.edu>
Organization: Taumetric Corporation, San Diego
Lines: 29

svb@cs.purdue.EDU (Stephan Bechtolsheim) writes:

>Look at the following source code please:


>// Have three functions with almost identical signatures.
>int F (int);
>int F (int &);
>int F (const int &);

The first two declarations cannot be distinguished, and the compiler
should complain about them.  Evidently, your compiler does not
complain, and picks one arbitrarily.

If overloaded function signatures differ only in that of two corresponding
parameters, one is type T and the other is T&, the declarations are
inherently ambiguous and should be detected a compilation time.

On the other hand, these two
	int F(int&);
	int F(const int&);
are not ambiguous:
	int i;
	const int ci;
	F(i);	// calls f(int&), since it is an exact match
	F(ci);	// calls f(const int&), since it is an exact match
-- 

Steve Clamage, TauMetric Corp, steve@taumet.com