Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!cs.utexas.edu!pp!pink!rfg
From: rfg@pink.ACA.MCC.COM (Ron Guilmette)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: Arguments to Overloaded Operators
Message-ID: <238@pink.ACA.MCC.COM>
Date: 8 Jun 89 19:02:31 GMT
References: <11032@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> <1100@cadillac.CAD.MCC.COM>
Reply-To: rfg@pink.aca.mcc.com.UUCP (Ron Guilmette)
Organization: MCC  Austin, Texas
Lines: 26

In article <1100@cadillac.CAD.MCC.COM> vaughan@mcc.com (Paul Vaughan) writes:
>Two questions:
>1)
>Has anyone considered overloaded functions/operators that are selected
>not only by a match of parameter types, but also according to the
>return type needed in the context?  That is, have multiple
>definitions for the same function name with differing return types.
>Forgive me if this has been beaten to death before.

Forgive me also!  I have been meaning to ask about this for quite awhile
now.

I have heard that Bjarne had *some* good reason for not allowing overloading
based on return types, but I never actually found out what that reason was.

Perhaps Andrew or Bjarne will clarify this for us.  If they do, I hope that
they will not be shy of details.  I really want to fully understand the
reason for this choice, right down to the nitty-gritty compiler-implementation
details.


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