From 5554511339341093216 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: f78e5,6a0e273cd04a6fa1 X-Google-Attributes: gidf78e5,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-01-16 08:00:03 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!dispose.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!mail2news.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail From: pdimov@mmltd.net (Peter Dimov) Newsgroups: comp.std.c++ Subject: Re: new meaning of explicit keyword Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 15:59:49 GMT Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Approved: Fergus Henderson , moderator of comp.std.c++ Message-ID: <7dc3b1ea.0201160443.a82cb81@posting.google.com> References: <92ce342f.0201100428.49e3dd92@posting.google.com> <3C3DE3E6.F27385B2@acm.org> <3C3E11E4.E454ABB0@acm.org> <92ce342f.0201110304.3045ea38@posting.google.com> <3C3F961A.AFDD9708@acm.org> <3C443846.C1742C70@acm.org> X-Trace: mail2news.demon.co.uk 1011196793 mail2news:24972 mail2news mail2news.demon.co.uk X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Mail2News-Path: news.demon.net!mulga.cs.mu.oz.au X-Authentication-Warning: mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU: fjh set sender to devnull@stump.algebra.com using -f X-Robomod: STUMP, ichudov@algebra.com (Igor Chudov) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit NNTP-Posting-Date: 16 Jan 2002 12:43:57 GMT Lines: 41 Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.std.c++:9077 Pete Becker wrote in message news:<3C443846.C1742C70@acm.org>... > Francis Glassborow wrote: > > There are times where we need > > conversion (via conversion operators) for templates. Conversion > > functions do not cut it because there is no uniform naming convention > > for them. OTOH I do not want to allow the compiler to use my conversion > > operator elsewhere for all the many reasons that we know that conversion > > operators are often poor design. > > > > There is no uniform naming convention for many things that we do inside > templates. The solution is to specify requirements for the types that > the template is instantiated on, such as having a conversion function > with a particular name and calling convention. If class designers choose > to require conversion operators, knowing that they provide the wrong > semantics, then they've made a mistake. There is no need to change the > language definition to "fix" this. In this case, however, we have an uniform naming convention: static_cast(). Unfortunately we can't use it. We can say Base * pb; Derived * pd = static_cast(pb); but not smart_ptr pb; smart_ptr pd = static_cast< smart_ptr >(pb); -- Peter Dimov Multi Media Ltd. --- [ comp.std.c++ is moderated. To submit articles, try just posting with ] [ your news-reader. If that fails, use mailto:std-c++@ncar.ucar.edu ] [ --- Please see the FAQ before posting. --- ] [ FAQ: http://www.research.att.com/~austern/csc/faq.html ]