Ran into this at work "operator ClassName *". What does this mean?

Question

The class with this code is a reference class for a pointer of ClassName, i.e.:

class ClassName;

class ClassRef
{
    ClassName* m_class;
    ...
    operator ClassName *() const { return m_class; }
...

I am assuming this is used for pointer validity checks, such as:

ClassRef ref(new ClassName())
if (ref) { bla bla bla }

Am I correct in my thinking?

Answer 1

This is an overload of the conversion operator. Whenever a ClassRef object needs to be converted to a ClassName pointer type, this operator is called.

So;

ClassRef r;
ClassName * p = r;

will make use of this overload.