Is it possible in C++11 to overload const char*'s and string literals (const char[])?
The idea is to avoid having to call strlen to find the string length when this length is known already.
This snippet breaks on G++ 4.8 and Clang++ 3.2:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
template<typename T, int N>
void length(const T(&data)[N]) {
printf("%u[]\n", N - 1);
}
template<typename T>
void length(const T* data) {
printf("*%u\n", (unsigned)strlen(data));
}
int main() {
length("hello");
const char* p = "hello";
length(p);
return 0;
}
Error (Clang):
test2.cpp:16:3: error: call to 'length' is ambiguous
length("hello");
^~~~~~
test2.cpp:6:6: note: candidate function [with T = char, N = 6]
void length(const T(&data)[N]) {
^
test2.cpp:11:6: note: candidate function [with T = char]
void length(const T* data) {
^
1 error generated.
Hacked a bit, and this appears to work:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
template<typename T, int N>
void length(const T(&data)[N]) {
printf("%u[]\n", N - 1);
}
template<typename T>
void length(T&& data) {
printf("*%u\n", (unsigned)strlen(data));
}
const char *foo() {
return "bar";
}
int main() {
length("hello");
const char* p = "hello";
length(p);
length(foo());
return 0;
}
Is this valid C++11? The string literal appears to overload on T&& when the array specialization is removed. What causes this ambigousness to be resolved, but not the one in the first code snippet?
