What is the meaning of const
in declarations like these? The const
confuses me.
class foobar
{
public:
operator int () const
Meaning of a Const Member Function in C++ Common Knowledge: Essential Intermediate Programming gives a clear explanation:
The type of the this pointer in a non-const member function of a class X is X * const. That is, it’s a constant pointer to a non-constant X (see Const Pointers and Pointers to Const [7, 21]). Because the object to which this refers is not const, it can be modified. The type of this in a const member function of a class X is const X * const. That is, it’s a constant pointer to a constant X. Because the object to which this refers is const, it cannot be modified. That’s the difference between const and non-const member functions.
So in your code:
class foobar
{
public:
operator int () const;
const char* foo() const;
};
You can think it as this:
class foobar
{
public:
operator int (const foobar * const this) const;
const char* foo(const foobar * const this) const;
};