Thread: Assigning int32_t to std::string, should this be allowed?

Hi all, my compiler (gcc 4.4.3 on ubuntu 10.04 64bit server) is allowing me to assign an int32_t to a std::string object. The code is as follows:

Code:

#include <stdint.h>
#include <iostream>
int main()
{
    int32_t i=1000000;
    std::string output;
    output=i;
    std::cout << output << std::endl;
    return 0;
}

which outputs:

Code:

@

Obviously, this isn't something I should be doing, but instead something that I was allowed to mistakenly do. I would have expected a compiler error saying that no assignment operator existed for integer to std::string. Instead what I believe is happening is that the compiler is implicitly converting int32_t to char, and then assigning the char to the string.

Is this a bug with the std::string class, with the compiler, or simply something I need to be more careful to avoid?

Thanks for the responses, I guess it makes sense if int32_t is being converted to char and char assignment to std::string is allowed. I wish gcc would at least warn about that conversion as Elysia reports Visual C++ does. Who knew MS would be more user friendly?