Overloaded method resolution order

[Nathan Sidwell]

Stuart Brooks wrote:

> According to Stroustrup (7.4), certain criteria are tried in order, so as to
> determine which matches the closest. I would have thought that, at least in
> the case of s2 (above), the "const char* getString() const" method would
> have been selected. I had also hoped that since the second one was
> protected, it would use the first one instead in any case. Am I missing
> something here?

yes.  G++'s behaviour is correct.  The non-const version
is selected because the object is non-constant.  therefore an exact
match is a better conversion than the qualification conversion (as the
latter contains the former).  Access is not considered until after overload
resolution.  That separation allows you to relax the access on
a member and not break an already working program.

nathan

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