No viable conversion from 'bool' to 'std::string'

Question

I have some code that looks like this:

static std::string Foo(const std::string& blah)
{
   if ( someWierdEdgeCase() ){
      return false;  // <-- this l         


        

Answer 1

If you need the return type to be - for whatever reason - not always present, return by pointer, instead of returning by value.

static yourType* Foo(const std::string& blah){
   if ( someWierdEdgeCase() ){
      return 0;
   }
}

Then you can test and assign the function in the same line

yourType* result;
if(result = Foo("something")){
  // the result was correct

Of course - since your function returns a std::string, you can return an empty string (""), or - also independent of the return type - throw an exception.