Why does a quoted string match bool method signature before a std::string?

Question

Given the following methods:

// Method 1
void add(const std::string& header, bool replace);

//Method 2
void add(const std::string& name, const std::         


        

Answer 1

Pointers have an implicit conversion to bool. Perhaps you have seen the following:

void myFunc(int* a)
{
    if (a)
        ++(*a);
}

Now, in C++, implicit conversions between built-in types take precedence over conversions between class-types. So for example, if you had a class:

class Int
{
public:
    Int(int i) {}
}

And you overloaded a function for long and Int:

void test(long n) {cout << "long";}
void test(Int n) {cout << "Int";}

You'll see that the following code calls the long overload:

int i;
test(i);