unknown operator

[wtf]

got error: could not convert something something yada yada ->integer::number + something unknown operator something something yada yada yada yada to bool

at line:
if ( number[i] = number[j] ); of my integer class where number is a digit pointer where digit is a class with bool operator = defined as:

    bool operator = (const int & rhs)
        {
            if (rhs >= digit_range || rhs < 0)
                return false;
            digit temp(rhs);
            dig = temp.dig;
            pv = temp.pv;
            vv = temp.vv;
            return true;
        }

where dig is a bitset<4>.

whats wrong?

[quirkyusername]

why does operator= return bool here? Did you mean to overload operator==?

[wtf]

why wouldn't it return bool? assignment operator for standard built in classes return bool by default.

[firedraco]

Uh, no they don't? They return the type as a reference. >_>

[3hM2Nwbp]

I typically thought that operator= returns a reference to an object of the same class. That's why operator= can typically be chained.

* I'm not aware of anything in the standard that declares that operator= must do this, however.

[wtf]

then why can you int a; if (a = 10); else;?

[3hM2Nwbp]

Precedence assigns 10 to `a`, then `a` is evaluated by the if statement.

[wtf]

@luc Liebersounds silly to have so many ways to do the same thing.
Wouldn't if (a = 10, a); else; do the exact same thing?

[quirkyusername]

if (a=10)

after the assignment operator does it thing and a now has the value 10, that if statement evaluates to

if (10)

any non zero value evaluates to true. if (a=10) does not check whether the assignment succeeded or not in case that's what you thought.

[wtf]

so anyways, does anyone know what I should do If I want my operator = function to return true on success and false on failure? or what exactly is my problem here anyway.

edit: @quirkyusername, yeah thats what I thought. So many newbie posts on here having if (a = X), when they really meant if (a == X), and no one ever mentioned that its still not doing what you thought that it should had that been what you actually intended it to do.

[wtf]

anywho, there's nothing wrong with me overriding my class operator ='s to return bool is there?

[Disch]

I don't advise it.

The whole idea of overloading operators is to make classes behave more natually. By returning a bool instead of the type you are breaking the natual behavior which makes your class weird and confusing. It kind of defeats the point.

[ne555]

I think that the problem is with yada, yada. So if you change it to something, something, it should work.
However be careful with ...
You could beep beep instead