The "opCast" overloading?

[Jarrett Billingsley]

"Arlen Albert Keshabyan" <arlen.albert at gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:ejvjgp$2hgk$1 at digitaldaemon.com...
> Hello Walter!
> The D language is just a miracle. Sure, you already know about that :).
> I know the problem of "opCast" cannot be overloaded so far. But I'm sure 
> there
> must be a way to do that somehow. That's the question of a semantic. 
> Right?
> May we hope it's going to happen soon? I'm asking you the question because
> you're the Father of D.

Many people have suggested it, by i.e.

void opCast(out int x)
{
    // put the cast result in x rather than returning it
}

Which would allow for overloading by type, but also has the disadvantage 
that you wouldn't be able to use cast(int)Object as a temporary.  :S

Frankly, I don't see the need for it.  D isn't trying to be C++, where you 
can define types which are just as "integrated" into the language as the 
standard types.  You can't have opAssign, or opDeref or opAddressOf, and so 
the "boundary" that D classes would have to cross to get to the kind of 
integration of C++ classes is so large, that allowing overloading of opCast 
just doesn't seem like it'd do much.  (And to tell you the truth, I wouldn't 
really want to see it either!)

The convention in D is instead to have "toType" methods which take the place 
of a cast.  I.e. toString, toInt, toOtherClassType etc.