Does a Function's Const-ness Influence the Return Type?

[zb0S216C]

As the title says, does the const-ness of a member functions influence the type it returns? I have this simple class:

struct X
{
    X(int *i_ = nullptr) noexcept : p_(i_) { }
    int *p_;
};

In another class, I have a simple member function that returns a pointer to a non-constant type:

struct Base
{
    /*...*/
    int *base() const { return(this->b_); }
    int b_[2];
};

This is all and good. However, when I attempt to call Base::base(), I get a conversion error:

int main()
{
    Base b_ = {1, 2};
    b_.base(); // Error here.
}

The error I get is this:

Compiler wrote:

error: invalid conversion from 'const int*' to 'int*'"

Is it the const-ness of Base::base() that's causing this?

Thanks :)

_Wazzak

[Athar]

It's not related to the return type, but it's not allowed to hand out such a pointer (or reference) to a member in a const member function.

[zb0S216C]

I should've guessed that much. Thanks for clearing that up for me, Athar :)

_Wazzak