Cambridge Ray

I am new to the forum. Hello all... I was flabbergasted the first time I used an IDE that had the "period completion" feature (or the similar, "left parenthesis"). It made me considering leaving old trusted "vi". The problem with the period is that it only goes one step deep: more steps are needed! Additionally, sometimes the period is not the answer to your travails, when a non-member function is the one that will convert from type "A" to type "B". When I was learning Java, a large number of questions (and time wasted) that I posted were of the form: "How do I convert [some type] to [some other type]?" The text conversions alone occupy an unordinate amount of time to programmers (just try Google to see what I mean). Some C++ examples: I had been using for a long time this (from Boost::Filesystem): string somestring = "abc/de"; path p = path(somestring); Only to realize, accidentally, that the conversion is done automatically. The IDE should help you in those cases: path p = somestring; This one made me kick myself. I used this many, many times: const char* sometext = somestring.string().c_str(); Well, it turns out that this one is just as good: const char* sometext = somestring.c_str(); My question is about research done in this particular field. I tried Google but the word "type" is too ambiguous. This problem is very similar to the resolution of Rubik's Cube. Your expression is in some "scrambled" state and you need the computer to tell you -not only any path! mind you- but the shortest path (known as God's algorithm) to the desired type. Exhaustive, aka brute force search can be used: after all, we are not talking Rubik type of steps, most of the time we are 1 or 2 steps away from the conversion. Regards, -RFH