Question

After reading this thread
What does the explicit keyword mean in C++?

I made up this program

class MyClass
{
  public:
  explicit MyClass(int a)
  {
    cout<<"Int was called"<<endl;
    val = a;
  }

  MyClass(char *a)
  {
    cout<<"Char was called"<<endl;
    val = atoi(a);
  }

  MyClass(const MyClass& copy)
  {
    cout<<"Copy Const was called"<<endl;
    this->val = copy.val;
  }

  inline const int getval() const
  { return val; }

  private:
  int val ;
};

main code

int main()
{
  int x=4;
  char y='4';
  char *z = &y;

  MyClass a(x);
  MyClass b(z);
  MyClass c(a);
  MyClass d('4');

  cout<<a.getval()<<endl;
  cout<<b.getval()<<endl;
  cout<<c.getval()<<endl;
  cout<<d.getval()<<endl;

  return 0;
}

The output was:

Int was called
Char was called
Copy Const was called
Int was called
4
4
4
52

Now, as per thread above, it should throw error after the constructor call on object d but it didn’t.

g++ version info

Using built-in specs.
Target: i486-linux-gnu
Configured with: ../src/configure -v --with-pkgversion='Ubuntu 4.4.3-4ubuntu5' --with-bugurl=file:///usr/share/doc/gcc-4.4/README.Bugs --enable-languages=c,c++,fortran,objc,obj-c++ --prefix=/usr --enable-shared --enable-multiarch --enable-linker-build-id --with-system-zlib --libexecdir=/usr/lib --without-included-gettext --enable-threads=posix --with-gxx-include-dir=/usr/include/c++/4.4 --program-suffix=-4.4 --enable-nls --enable-clocale=gnu --enable-libstdcxx-debug --enable-plugin --enable-objc-gc --enable-targets=all --disable-werror --with-arch-32=i486 --with-tune=generic --enable-checking=release --build=i486-linux-gnu --host=i486-linux-gnu --target=i486-linux-gnu
Thread model: posix
gcc version 4.4.3 (Ubuntu 4.4.3-4ubuntu5) 

I am not sure if i have done something wrong in the above code.
Please help

Answer 1

Explicit constructor will not allow you to do something like “implicit conversion”, e.g. when initializing an object:

MyClass d = 4;

or when calling a function with parameters:

void foo( const MyClass& param);

... 

foo( 4);

In your case, there is a conversion from char to int before calling the explicit constructor, which is as designed.