Object Member Access with Pointers

Section 18.8 Object Member Access with Pointers

When using pointers with objects, we are likely to encounter a syntax annoyance. Say we have a Pointer called myPointer that points at a Point object and we want to call the getX() function of that Point. We know that the pointer is just a memory address. To use it we need to dereference it - *myPointer will give us “the object that myPointer points at”. So we write the following to access the getX() of that object (using our Point.cxx ):

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Listing 18.8.1.

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The compiler spits out an error message that looks something like this:

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request for member ‘getX’ in ‘myPointer’, which is of pointer type ‘Point*’ (maybe you meant to use ‘->’ ?)

The issue is one of precedence

List of operator precedence at cppreference.com

. We intended to say, “first dereference the pointer, then use the getX member of that object”. However, . is interpreted before *. So what we said was “use the getX member of the pointer (.), then dereference the result (*).”. It is as if we had written *(myPointer.getX()), which does not make sense because myPointer is just a memory address, not an object, and thus has no getX(). One way to fix this is to use parentheses to make the order of operations clear:

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(*myPointer).getX();

That will work as intended (you can try it in the program above). However, it is a bit clunky. And it can get really clunky if we have a series of pointers to dereference. Something like the statement below is quite hard to quickly read and comprehend:

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(*(*(*cylinderPointer).getBasePointer()).getCenterPointer()).getX();

C++ provides a shorthand for this situation. Instead of using * and . together, we can use the pointer member access operator -> (also sometimes called the arrow operator. This operator is used to access members of an object through a pointer. You can think of myPointer->getX() as saying “go to the thing myPointer points at and then use the getX() member of that object”. No parentheses needed!

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So the final correct version of our simple program using the pointer member access operator would look like:

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Listing 18.8.2.

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Checkpoint 18.8.1.

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Checkpoint 18.8.2.

Which is the best way to pronounce p->foo()?

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“go to the thing p points and use the foo method of it”
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“use the foo method of p”
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“go to the thing that p’s foo method points at”
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