I tried to implement iterators for a class of mine and surprisingly I got the following:
warning: ISO C++ says that these are ambiguous, even though the worst conversion for the first is better than the worst conversion for the second
candidate 1: 'Iterator Iterator::operator+(const ptrdiff_t&) [with T = int; ptrdiff_t = long long int]'
candidate 2: 'operator+(int, unsigned int)'
Here's the Iterator
code:
template<typename T>
class Iterator {
public:
Iterator(T *p = nullptr) { this->ptr = p; }
Iterator(const Iterator<T>& iter) = default;
Iterator<T>& operator=(const Iterator<T>& iter) = default;
Iterator<T>& operator=(T* p) { this->ptr = p; return *this; }
operator bool() const { return this->ptr ? true : false; }
bool operator==(const Iterator<T>& p) const { return this->ptr == p.getConstPtr(); }
bool operator!=(const Iterator<T>& p) const { return this->ptr != p.getConstPtr(); }
Iterator<T>& operator+=(const ptrdiff_t& v) { this->ptr += v; return *this; }
Iterator<T>& operator-=(const ptrdiff_t& v) { this->ptr -= v; return *this; }
Iterator<T>& operator++() { ++this->ptr; return *this; }
Iterator<T>& operator--() { --this->ptr; return *this; }
Iterator<T> operator++(int) { auto temp(*this); ++this->ptr; return temp; }
Iterator<T> operator--(int) { auto temp(*this); --this->ptr; return temp; }
Iterator<T> operator+(const ptrdiff_t& v) { auto oldPtr = this->ptr; this->ptr += v; auto temp(*this); this->ptr = oldPtr; return temp; }
Iterator<T> operator-(const ptrdiff_t& v) { auto oldPtr = this->ptr; this->ptr -= v; auto temp(*this); this->ptr = oldPtr; return temp; }
ptrdiff_t operator-(const Iterator<T>& p) { return std::distance(p.getPtr(), this->getPtr()); }
T& operator*() { return *(this->ptr); }
const T& operator*() const { return *(this->ptr); }
T* operator->() { return this->ptr; }
T* getPtr() const { return this->ptr; }
const T* getConstPtr() const { return this->ptr; }
private:
T *ptr;
};
And here's how I typedef
it inside my class:
template<typename T>
class ExampleClass {
public:
// ...
typedef Iterator<T> iterator;
typedef Iterator<const T> const_iterator;
// ...
iterator begin() { return iterator(&this->ptr()[0]); }
iterator end() { return iterator(&this->ptr()[this->size()]); }
const_iterator cbegin() { return const_iterator(&this->ptr()[0]); }
const_iterator cend() { return const_iterator(&this->ptr()[this->size()]); }
// ...
// A function where I use the operator+
void slice(unsigned int first, unsigned int last) {
// ...
auto it = this->begin() + first; // <--------
// ...
}
};
Maybe I am missing something but how (Iterator, ptrdiff_t)
and (int, unsigned int)
are ambiguous?
I haven't compiled this, but the problem appears to be that operator bool()
; it provides an implicit conversion to bool
, which is, in turn, convertible to int
. Iterators in general don't provide their own validation, so this is unusual. If you need it, mark it explicit
. That will prevent the implicit conversion.