Compiler Warning (level 3) C4191

  • Article

'operator/operation' : unsafe conversion from 'type of expression' to 'type required'

Several operations involving function pointers are considered unsafe:

  • Function types with different calling conventions.

  • Function types with different return conventions.

  • Argument or return types with different sizes, type categories, or classifications.

  • Differing argument list lengths (on __cdecl, only on cast from longer list to shorter list, even if shorter is varargs).

  • Pointer to data (other than void*) aliased against a pointer to function.

  • Any other type difference that would yield an error or warning on a reinterpret_cast.

Calling this function through the result pointer might cause your program to crash.

This warning is off by default. See Compiler Warnings That Are Off by Default for more information.

The following sample generates C4191:

// C4191.cpp
// compile with: /W3 /clr
#pragma warning(default: 4191)

void __clrcall f1() { }
void __cdecl   f2() { }

typedef void (__clrcall * fnptr1)();
typedef void (__cdecl   * fnptr2)();

int main() {
   fnptr1 fp1 = static_cast<fnptr1>(&f1);
   fnptr2 fp2 = (fnptr2) &f2;

   fnptr1 fp3 = (fnptr1) &f2;   // C4191
   fnptr2 fp4 = (fnptr2) &f1;   // C4191
};