As stated on P215 [[effSTL]], inside const methods, all fields act like const fields. This is simpler for primitive fields like an int field, but trickier for non-primitive fields … like Animal —
class C{
Animal f;
Animal const & dump() const;
}
Inside dump(),
– we can’t overwrite f like “f = anotherAnimal”
– we can’t call mutator methods on f like “f.grow()” — uncompilable
– we can’t remove the “const” from dump() return type — uncompilable in GCC. See also http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite/const-correctness.html#faq-18.11 A common IV quiz.
– if Animal class overloads method age() on const, then compiler will statically bind the “f.age()” to the const version.
All these rules are compiler-enforced. No such check at run-time.
