Question

Possible Duplicate:
Overloading by return type

Is it possible to overload only the output of a function. Say for example i have a function that can return a pose in two different ways. A 6DOF pose or a homogenous transform matrix. So i would have two functions:

Eigen::Vector6f pose();

and

Eigen::Matrix4d pose();

Is it ok to overload the only the output?

If I do then how will the compiler know which function to use?

Can it tell when I do this:

Eigen::Matrix4d poseHolder = pose();

To use the second function? If not is there a way to accomplish this without just having separately named functions?

Answer 1

No, you can’t normally do this. If you really insist on using the same name for two different functions, you can kind of fake it by returning a proxy object with overloaded conversion operators:

struct Proxy {
    operator Eigen::Vector6f() const {
        // ...
    }

    operator Eigen::Matrix4d() const {
        // ...
    }
};

Proxy pose() { return Proxy(); }