What does 'operator sockaddr *()'mean here?

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What does 'operator sockaddr *()'mean here ? The class Raw is an inner class, sockaddr is a struct.


struct sockaddr
  {
    __SOCKADDR_COMMON (sa_);    /* Common data: address family and length.  */
    char sa_data[14];       /* Address data.  */
  };


class Address {
  public:
    //! \brief Wrapper around [sockaddr_storage](@ref man7::socket).
    //! \details A `sockaddr_storage` is enough space to store any socket address (IPv4 or IPv6).
    class Raw {
      public:
        sockaddr_storage storage{};  //!< The wrapped struct itself.
        operator sockaddr *();    // here
        operator const sockaddr *() const;
    };

  private:
    socklen_t _size;  //!< Size of the wrapped address.
    Raw _address{};   //!< A wrapped [sockaddr_storage](@ref man7::socket) containing the address.
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c++
1 Answers

This is a user defined conversion function. An object of type Raw can implicitly be converted to a sockaddr pointer. For example the following will compile:

void fun(sockaddr *p); // function that takes a sockaddr pointer

Address::Raw r;
fun(r); // implicit conversion occurs from Raw in order to use function `fun`
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