Overloading unary operator &

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Let's consider a class with overloaded unary operator & (Address-of). Let it be class A

template <class C>
class A
{
public:
    C * operator &()
    {
        return &data;
    }
    //...
private:
    C data;
}

Now I want to pass to some function a pointer of type A to fill its data. Let us call it f

void f(A * auto_containter)
{
    //...
}

But it is clear why the code bellow wouldn't work (even wouldn't compile). It is because the overloaded operator is called.

A a;
f(&a);

The question is following:

Is there any syntax to pass address of a to f? If no, then for me it is very strange why it is allowed to overload unary operator &, because it makes code more buggy and difficult to understand. Or there are some other reasons?

6 Answers
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