It would be great if you could answer Anand’s query since I also had the same doubt when I read the tutorial.
“Overloading the function doesn’t depend on Return type of function,
Overloading the function only depend on Signature of fucntion(i.e. no of args or types of args.)

Here Overloading function GetValue

const int& GetValue() const and
int& GetValue()

In this case, how does the compiler do name mangling?

Hope i will come back to this section again :(

So as per this statement you are saying it is not possible to change the value in the function using the reference but of course I am very sure we can change the value. Reference is nothing but a constant pointer which means it CAN’T point to another memory space once it is initialized. Of course I learned all this from your article only:p. So if you agree with me please edit the statement otherwise please correct me. Thanks.

class Something
{
        public:
                int m;
                int *buffer;

                Something() {m = 0; buffer = 0;}

                void Reset() {m = 0;}
                void Set(int n) {m = n;}
                void Cheat(int index, int value) const
                {
                        buffer[index] = value;
                }

                int Get() {return m;}
};

int main()
{
        const Something thing;
        thing.Cheat(2,3);

        return 0;
}

I got this from Stephen Dewhurst’s “C++ Common Knowledge”. This code will compile, since Cheat() is modifying what buffer refers to, not buffer itself, even though Cheat() is declared const!

class Something
{
public:
    int m_nValue;

    Something() { m_nValue = 0; }

    void ResetValue() { m_nValue = 0; }
    void SetValue(int nValue) { m_nValue = nValue; }

    int GetValue() { return m_nValue; }
};

int main()
{
    const Something cSomething; // calls default constructor

    cSomething.m_nValue = 5; // violates const - Compile Error
    cSomething.ResetValue(); // violates const - No error, its working
    cSomething.SetValue(5); // violates const - No error, its working

    return 0;
}

I am quite new to C++, Whatever I have read that Overloading the function doesn’t depend on Return type of function,
Overloading the function only depend on Signature of fucntion(i.e. no of args or types of args.)

Here one thig is confusing to me, Overloading function GetValue

 const int& GetValue() const  

and

 int& GetValue() 

Please help me over here.

Thanks a lot.
Anand.

Im using Borland C++ 5.0 compiler and it allows non constant member functions to call constant datamembers. would u explain why above two violated rules are not caught by my compiler?