Can't upcast pointer to pointer argument

Question

I can't understand anything here. I expected that if I can pass a dog pointer to function taking animal pointer, I could also pass the &dog to a function that takes a pointer to pointer of Animal.

struct Animal{};
struct Dog : Animal{};

void ptrToPtr(Animal** arg){}
void refToPtr(Animal*& arg){}
void refToConstPtr(Animal* const & arg){}
void ptrToConstPtr(Animal* const * arg){}

int main(void)
{
    Dog* dog;
    Animal* animal;

    ptrToPtr(&animal); // Works
    ptrToPtr(&dog); // Argument of type Dog** is incompatible with argument of type Animal**

    refToPtr(animal); // Works
    refToPtr(dog);      // A reference of type Animal*& (not const-qualified) cannot be initialized with a value of type Dog*

    ptrToConstPtr(&animal); // Works
    ptrToConstPtr(&dog);    // Argument of type Dog** is incompatible with paramater of type Animal* const*

    refToConstPtr(animal); // Works
    refToConstPtr(dog);  // Works. This is the only one that allows me to send Dog to Animal

    return 0;
}

I just don't get it, can anyone explain what the reasons are for why particular cases work and others don't? Like passing the dog pointer address to the Animal**, that would be an upcast, wouldn't it?

Answer 1

interconvertible pointer types are pointers to objects of a derived/base type. A "pointer to a pointer" isn't interconvertible with other types (with the exception of void* ). Same applies to references.

This means that given any hierarchy below:

struct Animal{};
struct Dog : Animal{};

And the following variables:

Dog* dptr;
Animal* aptr;

dptr can be converted to Animal* (even implicitly), likewise aptr can be converted to Dog* (but not implicitly). Because: up-casting in a class hierarchy is always legal, hence this will be done implicitly by ICS . However, down-casting isn't always so, so its never done implicitly)

However:

Dog** ddptr;
Animal** aaptr;

ddptr cannot be implicitly converted to Animal** , likewise aptr cannot be converted to Dog** . Because, they are two different types with no hierarchical relationship.

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The above explanation explains why the pointer to pointer overloads fail. That said, let's deal with the reference type overloads. From your code,

refToPtr(animal); // Works
refToPtr(dog);      // A reference of type Animal*& (not const-qualified) cannot be initialized with a value of type Dog*

the second call doesn't work because non-const references of say X can only be bound to an exact glvalue object of X . Since refToPtr takes a non-const reference to a Animal* type, we can only pass it glvalues of Animal* type, which animal is, but dog isn't.

the last one works, and it's legal because

refToConstPtr(animal); // Works
refToConstPtr(dog);    // Works. This is the only one that allows me to send Dog to Animal

const references of say X can be bound to any value catagory of X , including temproaries whose lifetimes are extended. Since since we can convert dog to Animal* . That conversion takes place and a temporary Animal* is produced whose lifetime is extended by the const reference.