const member function clarification needed

Question

I'm a little confused as to why this code compiles and runs:

class A
{
private:
    int* b;
public:
    A() : b((int*)0xffffffff) {}
    int* get_b() const {return this->b;}
};

int main()
{
    A a;
    int *b = a.get_b();
    cout<<std::hex<<b<<endl;
    return 0;
}

Output of running this code is FFFFFFFFas well... unexpected by me. Shouldn't this->b return const int* since it is in a const member function? and therefore the return line should generate a compiler-cast error for trying to cast const int* to int*

Obviously there's a gap here in my knowledge of what const member functions signify. I'd appreciate if someone could help me bridge that gap.

Answer 1

No, the member is an int* const (as seen from the const function), which is totally different.

The pointer is const, not the object pointed to.