c++ – Overloading the cast operator to the base class

Question:

They suddenly demanded in a derived class to overload the cast operator into the base one (this is a lab, I wouldn't do that myself).

#include <iostream>

class A {

};

class B: public A {
    operator A() {
        std::cout << "operator A()\n";
        A a;
        return a;
    }
};

int main() {
    B b;
    A a = (A)b;
}

At startup, it does not output anything – that is, it does not cause an overload. Friends said that most likely it would not work to overload the operator like that. I would like someone to tell in more detail why this does not work out and what the standard writes about this.

Answer:

The inherited class can itself be copied into its base class, this is called slicing .

If you change inheritance to class B: private A { ,
then we will see the compilation error: 'A' is an inaccessible base of 'B' .
Those. the compiler tries to slice, and ignores the cast operator.

Conclusion – you cannot write such a cast operator.