operator std::string() const?

Question

Can somebody tell me what precisely

operator std::string()

stands for?

Answer 1

It is a conversion operator that allows the object to be explicitly or implicitly casted to std::string. When such a cast occurs, the operator is invoked and the result of the cast is the result of the invocation.

As an example of an implicit cast, suppose you had a function that accepted type std::string or const std::string&, but not the given object type. Passing your object to that function would result in the conversion operator being invoked, with the result passed to the function instead of your type.