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From: zweig@m.cs.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: gnu.g++.bug
Subject: const int *, int * not overloadable
Message-ID: <53300013@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 24 May 89 18:59:00 GMT
Lines: 36
Nf-ID: #N:m.cs.uiuc.edu:53300013:000:1138
Nf-From: m.cs.uiuc.edu!zweig    May 24 13:59:00 1989


It seems like G++ isn't able to tell the difference between a pointer and a const
pointer (i.e. pointer to something you're not allowed to change) for purposes of
operator overloading. For example:

	overload f;
	int f(const int * i)
	{
		return (*i);
	}
	
	int f(int * i)
	{
		return (*i);
	}

produces the error messages:

	In function f (int *):
	tmp.cc:8: conflicting types for `int f (int *)'
	tmp.cc:3: previous declaration of `int f (const int *)'

Thus upshot is that G++ is able to complain about my sending a const int * into
a function that takes an int * (since it might let you illegally change what's
being pointed at), but there's no way to have a function that does the right
thing both for pointers to constant- and pointers to nonconstant values.


-Johnny Zweig
 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
 Department of Computer Science
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