Casting and inheritance, oh my.

[Sam Varshavchik <mrsam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

If I feed the following to gcc 4.6.3:

#include <sstream>

class Y : public std::ostringstream {

public:
   using std::ostringstream::operator<<;
};

Y y;

template<typename x> void cast(const x &z)
{
  (std::ostringstream &)y << z;
}

template<typename x> void inherit(const x &z)
{
  y << z;
}

int int_type;
char char_array[10];

I get the following results:

cast(int_type);      // This compiles
inherit(int_type);   // This compiles

cast(char_array);    // This compiles
inherit(char_array); // Failure, gcc complains about an ambiguous overload.

Why does it matter, how the operator gets resolved?

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