Overloaded Bool/String Ambiguity

Question

Why is C++ casting the string literal I pass in as a bool rather than a string?

#include 

using namespace std;

class A
{
    public:
              


        

Answer 1

If you have C++11 you can use a delegating constructor:

A(char const* s) : A(std::string(s)) { }

The reason the boolean converting-constructor is chosen over the one for std::string is because the conversion from char const* to bool is a standard conversion while the one to std::string is a user-defined conversion. Standard conversions have a greater rank than user-defined conversions.