Type conversions

Implicit conversions especially for mimas::mm_image and mimas::mm_rgba are implemented according to the following conventions:

• Conversions from objects of class A to class B are implemented as a (explicit) constructor of class B.

      ...
      class B {
      public:
         ...
         explicit B( const class &A ) ...
         ...
      };
      ...
  

• Conversions from objects of class A to an instance of a basic type are implemented as an operator of class A. For the basic type int it would look like this:

      ...
      class A {
      public:
         ...
         operator int(void) ...
         ...
      };
      ...
  

The reason for doing it like this is, that type-traits will be working properly, which will result in a speed-up of methods like std::copy or std::fill.

See boost type-traits for more information about type-traits.

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