TITLE: one tiny bit of life left for old casts

(Newsgroups: comp.std.c++, 19 May 97)


[ Here you thought the old style casts were completely obsolete.
  Guess again. :-)

  D&E is a reference to Stroustrup's "Design and Evolution of
  C++". -adc ]


ZABLUDA: Oleg Zabluda <zabluda@math.psu.edu>

> > There is only one use for an old-style
> > cast I can think of (which I've read in D&E): casting a derived
> > cass to a private base.


BONNARD: Valentin Bonnard
> 
> It won't work: you can't do anything more with old-style casts
> than new style ones; old style cast are only shorter since
> they can do several things at the same time, not more powerfull.


CLAMAGE: Steve Clamage <stephen.clamage@Eng.Sun.COM>

No, Oleg is correct.

The last paragraph of 5.4 "Explicit type conversion (cast notation)"
lists several operations allowed with old-style casts, but which
cannot be performed by new-style casts. Casting to a private base
class is one of them. I think it is unfortunate that old-style
casts are still needed in some circumstances.