Why is “operator bool()” invoked when I cast to “long”?

Question

I have the following class:

class MyClass {
public:
   MyClass( char* what ) : controlled( what ) {}
   ~MyClass() { delete[] controlled; }
   operator char*() c         


        

Answer 1

It's one of the known pitfalls of using operator bool, that is a aftershock of C inheritance. You'd definitively benefit from reading about the Safe Bool Idiom.

In general, you didn't provide any other matchable casting operator, and bool (unfortunately) is treated as a good source for arithmetic casting.