Cannot convert overloaded function pointer to member function pointer?

Question

I have code as following

class A
{
public:
    int Key() const;
};

class B : public A
{};

template<class T, int (T::*MemFunction)() const>
class TT
{
public:
    int Get() const               {return (m_t.*MemFunction)();}

private:
    T m_t;
};

TT<B, &B::Key> t; // Wrong, cannot convert overloaded function
                  // to int (T::*MemFunction)() (VS2010)

Why and how to a similar way works? Thanks

Answer 1

The answer has already been provided by billz, but I will try to produce an explanation.

In C++ when obtaining a pointer to member, the result of the expression is not a pointer to member of the type present in the expression, but rather a pointer-to-member of the type where the member is defined. That is, the expression &B::Key yields &A::Key , as the member function Key is defined in A and not in B . This is defined in §5.3.1/3, which is hard to read but comes with an example:

The result of the unary & operator is a pointer to its operand. The operand shall be an lvalue or a qualified-id. If the operand is a qualified-id naming a non-static member m of some class C with type T, the result has type “pointer to member of class C of type T” and is a prvalue designating C::m. Otherwise, if the type of the expression is T, the result has type “pointer to T” and is a prvalue that is the address of the designated object (1.7) or a pointer to the designated function. [ Note: In particular, the address of an object of type “cv T” is “pointer to cv T”, with the same cv-qualification. — end note ] [ Example:

struct A { int i; };
struct B : A { };
... &B::i ... // has type int A::*

— end example ]

This means that your template instantiation is equivalent to:

TT<B, &A::Key>

While a pointer-to-member to a member of a base can be converted to a pointer-to-member to the a derived type, for the particular case of a non-type non-template template parameter that conversion is not allowed. The conversions for non-type non-template template parameters are defined in §14.3.2/5, which for this particular case states:

For a non-type template-parameter of type pointer to member function, if the template-argument is of type std::nullptr_t, the null member pointer conversion (4.11) is applied; otherwise, no conversions apply.

Since the &A::Key cannot be converged to int (B::*)() const , the template instantiation is ill-formed. By adding the cast in the template instantiation you are forcing the conversion to happen before instantiating the template, and the instantiation becomes valid as there is no need for conversiones.

Answer 2

A cast should make it work:

typedef int (B::*Key)() const;
TT<Key(&B::Key)> t;
t.Get();