Overloading std::string constructor

Question

Can I overload the std::string constructor?

I want to create a constructor which takes std::wstring and return a std::string. is it possible and how?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Can I overload the std::string constructor?

Nope, it would require changing std::string declaration.

I want to create a constructor which takes std::wstring and return a std::string. is it possible and how?

You can have a conversion function instead, like:

std::string to_string(std::wstring const& src);

However, you need to decide what to do with symbols that can't be represented using 8-bit encoding of std::string: whether to convert them to multi-byte symbols or throw an exception. See wcsrtombs function.