I have the following function (which worked in Visual Studio): bool Plane::contains(Vector& point){ return normalVector.dotProduct(point - position) < -doubleResolution; } When I compile it using g++ version 4.1.2 , I get the following error: Plane.cpp: In member function âvirtual bool Plane::contains(Vector&)â: Plane.cpp:36: error: no matching function for call to âVector::dotProduct(Vector)â Vector.h:19: note: candidates are: double Vector::dotProduct(Vector&) So as you can see, the compiler thinks (point-position) is a Vector but it's expecting Vector&. What's the best way to fix this? I verified that this works: Vector temp = point-position; return normalVector.dotProduct(temp) < -doubleResolution; But I was hoping for something a little bit cleaner. I heard a suggestion that adding a copy constructor might help. So I added a copy constructor to Vector (see below), but it didn't help. Vector.h: Vector(const Vector& other); Vector.cpp: Vector::Vector(const Vector& other) :x(other.x), y(other.y), z(other.z), homogenous(other.homogenous) { }